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Date: 1734

"We see and feel these limbs, and this flesh of ours; we are acquainted at least with the outside of this animal machine, and sometimes call it ourselves, though philosophy and reason would rather say, it is our house or tabernacle, because we possess it, or dwell in it: it is our en...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1734

"A surprising Phænomenon of nature is this, that the soul of man, which ranges abroad though the heavens, and the earth, and the deep waters, and unfolds a thousand mysteries of nature, which penetrates the systems of stars and suns, worlds upon worlds, should be so unhappy a stranger at home, an...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1734

"If I but close my eyes, strange images / In thousand forms and thousand colours rise, / Stars, rainbows, moons, green dragons, bears and ghosts, / An endless medley rush upon the stage, / And dance and riot wild in reason's court / Above control."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1735

"Hope may some boundless Future Bliss embrace, / But What, or When, or How, or Where, / Are Mazes all, which Fancy runs in vain"

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

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Date: 1735

"Nor can the narrow Cells of human Brain / The vast immeasurable Thought contain"

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

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Date: October, 1739

"Bid Fancy quit her fairy cell, / In all her colours drest / While prompt her sallies to control, / Reason, the judge, recalls the soul / To Truth's severest test."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

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Date: 1741

"This will gradually give the Mind a Faculty of surveying many objects at once; as a Room that is richly adorned and hung round with a great Variety of Pictures, strikes the Eye almost at once with all that Variety, especially if they have been well surveyed one by one at first: This makes it hab...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1741

"But Words and Things which he lately spoke or did, they are immediately forgot, because the Brain is now grown more dry and solid in its Consistence, and receives not much more impression than if you wrote with your Finger on a Floor of Clay, or a plaister'd Wall."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1741

"But in the middle Stage of Life, or it may be from fifteen to fifty Years of Age, the Memory is generally in its happiest State, the Brain easily receives and long retains the Images and Traces which are impress'd upon on it, and the natural Spirits are more active to range these little infinite...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1742

"No more shall trickling Sorrows roll / Thro' those dear Windows of his Soul."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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