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Date: September 17, 1726

"I Need not expatiate upon other Characters; for I have too good an Opinion of your Readers, to doubt of their beginning now to be sensible that most Men speak and act but from a fortuitous Concourse of Images, or a Train of them stored up in the Brain."

— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)

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Date: 1729

"What Numbers of learned Fools do we not meet with in large Libraries; from whose Works it is evident, that Knowledge must have lain in their Heads, as Furniture at an Upholder's; and the Treasure of the Brain was a Burden to them, instead of an Ornament!"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

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Date: 1729

"But as to the mysterious Structure of the Brain itself, and the more abstruse Oeconomy of it, that he knows nothing; but that the whole seems to be a medullary Substance, compactly treasur'd up in infinite Millions of imperceptible Cells, that dispos'd in an unconceivable Order, are cluster'd to...

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

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Date: 1732

"Trace it to the fountain-head, and you shall not find that you had it by any of your senses, the only true means of discovering what is real and substantial in nature: you will find it lying amongst other old lumber in some obscure corner of the imagination, the proper receptacle of visions, fan...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

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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)

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Date: 1741

"Use all Diligence to acquire and treasure up a large Store of Ideas and Notions: Take every Opportunity to add something to your Stock; and by frequent Recollection fix them in your memory: Nothing tends to confirm and enlarge the Memory like a frequent Review of its Possessions."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1741

"Where the Memory has been almost constantly employing itself in scraping together new Acquirements, and where there has not been a Judgment sufficient to distinguish what Things were fit to be recommended and treasured up in the Memory, and what things were idle, useless or needless, the Mind ha...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1741

"A few useful Things perhaps, mixed and confounded with many Trifles and all manner of Rubbish fill up their Memories, and compose their intellectual Possessions. 'Tis a great Happiness therefore to distinguish things aright, and to lay up nothing in the Memory but what has some just Value in it,...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1741

"But what Part of the Brain that is, wherein the Images of Things lie treasured up, is very hard for us to determine with Certainty. It is most probable that those very Fibres, Pores or Traces of the Brain, which assist at the first Idea or Perception of any Object, are the fame which assist also...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1742

"God beholds all souls bare, and stripped of these corporeal vessels, bark, and filth."

— Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180), Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), and James Moor (bap. 1712, d. 1779)

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