Date: 1724

"As in Bodies there is a Principle of Gravity or Attraction, whereby in Vacuo, they tend to one another, and would unite, according to certain Laws and Limitations established by the Author of Nature: So there is an Analogous Principle in Spirits, whereby they would as certainly, in their proper ...

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)

Date: 1724

"As a Stone in a Wall, fastened with Mortar, compressed by surrounding Stones, and involved in a Million of other Attractions, cannot fall to the Earth, nor sensibly exert its natural Gravity, no, not so much as to discover there is such a Principle in it; just so, the intelligent Soul, in this h...

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)

Date: 1727

"But each Man's secret Standard in his Mind, / That casting Weight, Pride adds to Emptiness"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1728

"Gold is the Load-stone of the Great, / And vulgar Souls must catch the glitt'ring Bait."

— Pattison, William (1706-1727)

Date: 1729

"Now, while my thought round nature's circle runs / (A bolder journey than the furious sun's) / This chief and satiating good to find / The attracting centre of the human mind"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1732

"Gorgias hath gone further, demonstrating man to be a piece of clock-work or machine; and that thought or reason are the same thing as the impulse of one ball against another."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1733

"Be wise and pannick fright disdain, / At notions, meteors of the brain"

— Green, Matthew (1696-1737) [pseud. Peter Drake, a Fisherman of Brentford]

Date: 1733-4

"Passions, like Elements, tho' born to fight, / Yet, mix'd and soften'd, in his work unite"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: January 1739

"An idea assented to feels different from a fictitious idea, that the fancy alone presents to us: and this different feeling I endeavour to explain by calling it a superior force, or vivacity, or solidity, or firmness, or steadiness."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"In short, the actions of the mind are, in this respect, the same with those of matter."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)