Date: 1731

"So if the Knowledge of Corporeal Things were but a Secondary and Derivative Result from Sense, (though it cannot be conceived that the Passion of Sense should ray upon the Intellect, so as to beget a Secondary Passion there, any more than one Shadow should cast another) then Knowledge would be m...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1733

"The most difficult Problem in all the Animal OEconomy, is, to give any tolerable Account of Muscular Action or Animal Motion. The Similitude of a Machin put into Action and Motion by the Force of Water convey'd in Pipes, was the readiest Resemblance the Lazy could find to explain Muscular Motion...

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)

Date: 1734

"And perhaps it is owing to this Medium or Canal, among other things, that having two Eyes and two Ears we do not see nor hear double."

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

Date: 1737

"My faults will not be hid from you, and perhaps it is no dispraise to me that they will not: the cleanness and purity of one's mind is never better proved, than in discovering its own faults at first view; as when a stream shows the dirt at its bottom, it shows also the transparency of the water."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737, 1743

"The best way to prove the clearness of our mind, is by shewing its Faults; as when a Stream discovers the Dirt at the bottom, it convinceth us of the transparency and purity of the Water."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737, 1743

"It is with narrow-soul'd People as with narrow-neck'd Bottles: The less they have in them the more noise they make in pouring it out."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"You see 'tis with weak heads as with weak stomachs, they immediately throw out what they received last; and what they read floats upon the surface of their mind, like oil upon water, without incorporating."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1738

A person may be called the same person by "a continual Superaddition of the like Consciousness ... Just as a Ship is called the same Ship, after the whole Substance is changed by frequent Repairs; or a River is called the same River, though the Water of it be every Day new."

— Clarke, Samuel (1675-1729)

Date: January 1739

"[I]t follows that every thing which invigorates and enlivens the soul, whether by touching the passions or imagination, naturally conveys to the fancy this inclination for ascent, and determines it to run against the natural stream of its thoughts and conceptions"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

Personal identity may be like a river which is totally alter'd "in less than four and twenty hours."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)