Date: 1605, 1640

"But the poets and writers of histories are the best doctors of this knowledge; where we may find painted forth, with great life, how affections are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves; how they wor...

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1615

"Go too then, is not he said to know himself, who can tell how to temper and order the state and condition of his mind, how to appease those civil tumults within himself, by the storms and waves whereof he is pitifully tossed, and how to suppress and appease those varieties of passions wherewith ...

— Crooke, Helkiah (1576-1648)

Date: 1615

"And this power or faculty when the braine hath once receiued it from the heart, standeth in no neede of continuall and immediate assistance therefrom, but onely of a supply after some time: Euen as the Commander of an Army, who hauing receiued his authority and his company from the Prince, stand...

— Crooke, Helkiah (1576-1648)

Date: 1655

"Therefore it belongs to the will as to the Generall of an Army to moove the other powers of the soul to their acts, and among the rest the understanding also, by applying it and reducing its power into act."

— Bramhall, John (1594-1663)

Date: 1674

"What then can remain to cause this dire war daily observed within us, betwixt the allurements of our Sense, on one side, and the grave dictates of our Mind, on the other; but two distinct Agents, the Rational Soul and the Sensitive, coexistent within us, and hotly contending about the conduct of...

— Charleton, Walter (1620-1707)

Date: 1682

"We are carry'd Up to the Heavens, and Down again into the Deep, by Turns; so long as we are govern'd by our Affections, and not by Virtue: Passion, and Reason, are a kind of Civil War within us; and as the one, or the other has Dominion, we are either Good, or Bad."

— L'Estrange, Sir Roger (1616-1704)

Date: 1691

"First, for Use; So we see the Senses of such eminent Use for our well-being, situate in the Head, as Sentinels in a Watch-Tower, to receive and conveigh to the Soul the impressions of external Objects"

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627–1705)

Date: 1698

"But when Vice is varnish'd over with Pleasure, and comes in the Shape of Convenience, the case grows somewhat dangerous; for then the Fancy may be gain'd, and the Guards corrupted, and Reason suborn'd against it self."

— Collier, Jeremy (1650-1726)

Date: 1705

"But if the Corporeal Soul withstanding, as it often happens, the Rational still insists with Admonitions and Threats, presently the other growing hot, moves the Blood and Spirits after a disorderly manner, opposes Corporeal Goods and Pleasures, to the Spiritual presented by the Understanding, an...

— Beaumont, John (c.1640-1731)

Date: 1710, 1714

"Here the fantastick Tribe it-self seems scandaliz'd. A Civil War begins. The major part of the capricious Dames range themselves on Reason's side, and declare against the languid Syren. Ambition blushes at the offer'd Sweet. Conceit and Vanity take superiour Airs. Even Luxury her-self, in her po...

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)