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Date: 1712

"Tell us, Lucretius, Epicurus, tell, / And you in Wit unrival'd shall excel, / How thro' the outward Sense the Object flies, / How in the Soul her Images arise. / What Thinking, what Perception is, explain; / What all the airy Creatures of the Brain; / How to the Mind a Thought reflected goes, / ...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: September 10, 1726

"To explain this, we must consider that the first Image which an outward Object imprints on our Brain is very slight; it resembles a thin Vapour which dwindles into nothing, without leaving the least track after it. But if the same Object successively offers itself several times, the Image it occ...

— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)

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Date: 1727

"To see a Fool, a Fop, believe himself inspir'd, a Fellow that washes his Hands fifty times a-day, but if he would be truly cleanly, should have his Brains taken out and wash'd, his Scull Trapan'd, and plac'd with the hind-side before, that his Understanding, which Nature plac'd by Mistake, with ...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1730

"Learning! that mazy Cobweb of the Brain, / That renders all the Avenues / Of Truth, that in itself is plain, / Impervious and abstruse, / Perplex'd and intricate, / By that false Engine of our Mind, Debate."

— Woodward, George (b. 1708?)

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Date: 1732

"Gorgias hath gone further, demonstrating man to be a piece of clock-work or machine; and that thought or reason are the same thing as the impulse of one ball against another."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

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Date: 1734

"Mean-time the Body, which we study to soak in Pleasure like a Sponge, is of it self but a mere dead Husk, and drops off at last: and a Man reckons upon it no farther, than as a Machine for bringing him Pleasure, and would sometimes be content to change it for another Body, if he could, and does ...

— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)

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Date: 1733-4

"Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; / Reason's comparing balance rules the whole."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

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Date: 1743

"Though grey our heads, our thoughts and aims are green; / Like damaged clocks, whose hand and bell dissent; / Folly sings six, while Nature points at twelve."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Passion's fierce illapse / Rouzes the mind's whole fabric; with supplies / Of daily impulse keeps the elastic powers / Intensely poiz'd, and polishes anew / By that collision all the fine machine: / Else rust would rise, and foulness, by degrees / Incumbering, choak at last what heaven design'd ...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

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