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Date: 1709, 1810

"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1719

"During the long Time that Friday has now been with me, and that he began to speak to me, and understand me, I was not wanting to lay a Foundation of religious Knowledge in his Mind."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1727

"For I cannot agree that the Soul is in the Body, as in a Prison; but rather that, like a rich Nobleman, he is pleas'd to inhabit a fine Country Seat or Palace of his own Building, where he resolves to live and enjoy himself, and does so, 'till by the Fate of things his fine Palace being over-tur...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1727

"I answer, he was harrass'd by the Reflection of his own Guilt, and the Sluices of the Soul were set open by the Angels or Spirits attending, and who by Divine Appointment are always at hand to execute the vindictive Part of Justice, as well as the more merciful Dispensations of Heaven, when they...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1727

"These abandon'd him to the Fury of an enrag'd Conscience, open'd the Sluices of the Soul, as I call them, and pour'd in a Flood of unsufferable Grief, letting loose those wild Beasts call'd Passions upon him, such as Rage, Anguish, Self-reproach, too late Repentance, and final Desperation, all t...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1734

"What worlds of worth lay crowded in that breast! / Too strait the mansion for th'illustrious guest."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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