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Date: 1704

"By Arguments they could not convince me, for I was able to show greater absurdities in their Religion than they could prove in mine; and particularly, in their Doctrine of Transubstantiation; Against which I argu'd several ways: As, First from the Testimony of our Senses , viz. of seeing, feelin...

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

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Date: 1704

"Thus the belief of Transubstantiation is inconsistent with the Belief of these Miracles; for if we believe them we must allow the Testimony of Sense to be a sufficient proof of them; But if we believe Transubstantiation we must renounce our Senses , and deny them to be a certain proof of any thi...

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

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Date: 1704

"For it is liable to many of the same absurdities with the Romish Doctrine, about the Eucharist; First, because it denies the certainty of our Senses in the proper objects, and consequently destroys their great Evidence of the Christian Religion, from the Miracles wrought in confirmation of it, w...

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

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Date: 1704

"The Natural Power of Conscience, which reproves and torments a Man for the heinous Crimes he has committed, tho' the Person be above the fear of human Punishment, or the Crime be committed so secretly, as to escape all natural means of discovery; in which Cases Conscience by its Sentence does, a...

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

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Date: 1721, 1722

"With us there is an uniformity of character, as it is all forced: we do not see people as they are, but as they are obliged to appear: in this state of slavery, both of body and mind, it is their fears only that speak, which have but one language, and that not of nature, which expresses herself ...

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

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Date: 1721, 1722

"This prince is, besides, a great magician; he exercises his empire even over the minds of his subjects, and makes them think as he pleases."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

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Date: 1721, 1722

"The soul united to a body is continually under its tyrannical power."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

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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)

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Date: 1748, 1750

"l'interêt est le plus grande monarque de la Terre" [Self-interest is the strongest monarch in the world]

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

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Date: 1748, 1749

"If reason is the slave of depraved, or distracted sense, how then can it be expected, that at that time it should be governor?"

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

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