Date: 1604

"How are the Soule and Body, Spirite and Flesh coupled together, what chaynes, what fetters imprison a spirituall Substance, an immortal Spirit in so base, stinking; and corruptible a carkasse?"

— Wright, Thomas (c. 1561-1623)

Date: 1718

"For from most Bodies, Dick, You know,/ Some little Bits ask Leave to flow; / And, as thro' these Canals They roll, / Bring up a Sample of the Whole. / Like Footmen running before Coaches, / To tell the Inn, what Lord approaches."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"Here, Richard, how could I explain, / The various Lab'rinths of the Brain?"

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"The Brain contains ten thousand Cells: / In each some active Fancy dwells; / Which always is at Work, and framing / The several Follies I was naming."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"Whilst, as my System says, the Mind / Is to these upper Rooms confin'd."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

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)

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)

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)

Date: 1755

"[...] a Storehouse, as it were, with Bags, Shelves, and Drawers, to lodge Ideas in, and, at the same Time, to compare these Impressions, such as a Seal makes upon Wax, (when Impressions are worn out, how are they to be renewed without a fresh Application of the Seal?) Footsteps, Traces, &c. and ...

— Richardson, J. of Newent (fl. 1755)

Date: 1764

Perception is "a kind of drama, wherein some things are performed behind the scenes, others are represented to the mind in different scenes, one succeeding the another"

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)