Date: 1723

"The Cells, and little Lodgings, Thou canst see / In Mem'ry's Hoards and secret Treasury; / Dost the dark Cave of each Idea spy, / And see'st how rang'd the crouded Lodgers lye; / How some, when beckon'd by the Soul, awake, / While peaceful Rest their uncall'd Neighbours take."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: February 22, 1723

"Can the Queen / Pierce to the close recesses of the soul? / Are thoughts there visible, like children's toys / Kept in a chrystal case?"

— Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)

Date: September 10, 1726

"To explain this, we must consider that the first Image which an outward Object imprints on our Brain is very slight; it resembles a thin Vapour which dwindles into nothing, without leaving the least track after it. But if the same Object successively offers itself several times, the Image it occ...

— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Date: 1734

"Search well, my soul, thro' all the dark recesses / Of nature and self-love, the plies, the folds, / And hollow winding caverns of the heart, / Where flattery hides our sins."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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: 1737

"As Years advance, th'abated Soul in most / Sinks to low Ebb, in second Childhood lost; / And feeble Age, dishonouring our Kind, / Robs all the Treasures of the wasted Mind"

— Hughes, Jabez (1685-1731)