Date: 380-360 B.C.

"The body is held together at a certain tension between the extremes of hot and cold, and dry and wet, and so on, and our soul is a temperament or adjustment of these same extremes, when they are combined in just the right proportion."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: w. 350 B.C.

"Voice is a kind of sound characteristic of what has soul in it; nothing that is without soul utters voice, it being only by a metaphor that we speak of the voice of a flute or the lyre or generally of what (being without soul) possesses the power of producing a succession of notes which differ i...

— Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

Date: 1651

"Many erroneous opinions are about the essence and original of [the rational soul]; whether it be fire, as Zeno held; harmony, as Aristoxenus; number, as Xenocrates; whether it be organical, or inorganical; seated in the brain, heart or blood; mortal or immortal; how it comes into the body."

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1694

"For although the Soul is said to reside in one place, it operates in every part, exercising every Member, which are the Souls Instruments, by which she manifesteth her power; but if it so happen, that any of the Organical parts are out of Tune, the work is confused."

— Aristotle [pseud.]

Date: 1710, 1714

"For the understanding here must have its mark, its characteristic note, by which it may be distinguished."

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

Date: 1724

"One Law of the Action of the Soul on the Body, & vice versa, seems to be, That upon such and such Motions produced in the Musical Instrument of the Body, such and such Sensations should arise in the Mind; and on such and such Actions of the Soul, such and such Motions in the Body should ensue; m...

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)

Date: 1731

"Feeling is nothing but the Impulse, Motion, or Action of Bodies, gently or violently impressing the Extremities or Sides of the Nerves, of the Skin of other parts of the Body, which by their Structure and Mechanism, convey this Motion to the Sentient Principle in the Brain, or the Musician."

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)

Date: 1748, 1754

"For, being now destitute of that Counter-poise which held them at a due pitch, they grow turbulent, peevish, and revengeful, the Cause of constant Restlessness and Torment, sometimes flying out into a wild delirious Joy, at other times settling into a deep splenetic Grief. The Concert between Re...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: Tuesday, November 20, 1750

"Yet, if we consider the conduct of those sententious philosophers, it will often be found, that they repeat these aphorisms, merely because they have somewhere heard them, because they have nothing else to say, or because they think veneration gained by such appearances of wisdom, but that no id...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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)