Date: 1596

"Vnderstanding is that facultie in the soale whereby we vse reason: and it is the more principall part seruing to rule and order the whole man, and therefore it is placed in the soule to be as the wagginer in the waggin."

— Perkins, William (1558-1602)

Date: 1654

"[T]here are cases wherein this law must vaile to an higher, which is the law of Conscience: Woe be to that man who shall tye himselfe so close to the letter of the law, as to make shipwrack of conscience; And that bird in his bosome will tell him, that if upon what ever pretences, he shall willi...

— Hall, Joseph (1574-1656)

Date: 1659

"The Soul can neither impart to nor take away from the Matter of her Vehicle of Air any considerable degree of Motion, but yet can direct the particles moved which way she pleases by the Imperium of her Will."

— More, Henry (1614-1687)

Date: 1659

"But the difficulty now is, whether that Humane shape that the Soul transforms her Vehicle into, be simply the effect of the Imperium of her Will over the Matter she actuates, or that her Will may be in some measure limited or circumscribed in its effect by a concomitant exertion of the Plastick ...

— More, Henry (1614-1687)

Date: 1756, 1766

"As the instincts and passions were wisely and kindly given us, to subserve many purposes of our present state, let them have their proper, subaltern share of action; but let reason ever have the sovereignty, (the divine law of reason and truth) and be, as it were, sail and wind to the vessel of ...

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1767

"Man in this world, Sir, may be compared to a hackney-coach upon a stand; continually subject to be drawn by his unruly appetites, on one foolish jaunt or another; but you will say, if his appetites are horses, which as it were drag him along, reason is the coachman to rule those horses--But, Sir...

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)