Date: 1734

"But what shall we think of this odd Treasury, which retains things during a certain time, and then loses them, even before the Infirmities of Age come on? We say a thing has dropt out of our head: (where does it drop?) and it drops in again when we least expect it. What Corners do those Images l...

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

Date: 1734

"The question is, how this Familiarity arises? and how the Cabinet comes to be sensible of any thing that's put into it? A Scritore knows nothing of the Papers which the careful Banker locks up in it? Or a Glass, tho' it may be said to receive the Image of a Beau, and he really sees somewhat of h...

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

Date: 1734

"But what Texture of the Brain is sufficient to perform all the various Operations they assign to it, Sensation, Reflection, Wishing, Loving, Hating? Of what figure are the Cells for Poetry, and those for Mathematicks? And what Lodgings of the Brain are Honesty and Knavery to be found in?"

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

Date: 1736

"And by their Means it becomes a delightful Store-house of the richest Truth and most valuable Knowledge."

— Bernard, Thomas (1684/5-1755)

Date: May 6, 1736

"To express this to us by Similitudes both just and beautiful; some Philosophers compare an human Soul to an empty Cabinet, of inexpressible Value for the Matter and Workmanship: and particularly, for the wonderful Contrivance of it, as having all imaginable Conveniencies within, for treasuring u...

— Denne, John (1693-1767)

Date: 1737

"The old project of a window in the bosom, to render the Soul of man visible, is what every honest friend has manifold reason to wish for; yet even that would not do in our case, while you are so far separated from me, and so long."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: January 1739

"I shall therefore observe, that as the mind is endowed with a power of exciting any idea it pleases; whenever it despatches the spirits into that region of the brain, in which the idea is placed; these spirits always excite the idea, when they run precisely into the proper traces, and rummage th...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, repass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

Personal identity may be like a church, "which was formerly of brick, fell to ruin, and that the parish rebuilt the same church of free-stone, and according to modern architecture."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

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)