Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"For, though he that contemplates the Operations of his Mind, cannot but have plain and clear Ideas of them; yet unless he turn his Thoughts that way, and considers them attentively, he will no more have clear and distinct Ideas of all the Operations of his Mind, and all that may be observed ther...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1709, 1714

"They wou'd new frame the Human Heart; and have a mighty Fancy to reduce all its Motions, Ballances and Weights, to that one Principle and Foundation of a cool and deliberate Selfishness."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1734

"How shall the Wheel of the Imagination that's continually in motion, be either stop'd or regulated?"

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

Date: 1748, 1749

"The human body is a machine that winds up its own springs: it is a living image of the perpetual motion."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: w. c. 1759-1791

"And this in some measure accounts why there are some heads so strange and whimsical, without any fixed Ideas at all, some exceedingly heavy and confusd; some working and whirling along with amazing rapidity, depending in a great measure upon the different movements of the machine as it works and...

— Pratt, Jermyn (d. 1791)

Date: w. c. 1759-1791

"should it be granted me then that there is or may be such a machine or Gig in every mans head; that thus works and mills his Ideas, yet it may be questiond perhaps after all, what it is that can give it its first motion."

— Pratt, Jermyn (d. 1791)

Date: w. c. 1759-1791

"I will be the Director of no mans opinion but he who is anatomically acquainted with the processus Zygomaticus, the processus Hyloides, or the processius mammillaris; will easily grant me all this may be performd by the air that is received by the ear, or mouth only; so that it is reasonable to ...

— Pratt, Jermyn (d. 1791)

Date: 1774

"If it were not employed in this, genius must go on like a mere machine, and a person should have no power over it after it were once set in motion."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1785

"BOSWELL. 'But, sir,'tis like walking up and down a hill; one man will naturally do the one better than the other. A hare will run up a hill best, from her fore-legs being short; a dog down.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, sir; that is from mechanical powers. If you make mind mechanical, you may argue in that ma...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)