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Date: May 10, 1704

"Now it usually happens that these active spirits, getting possession of the brain, resemble those that haunt other waste and empty dwellings, which for want of business either vanish and carry away a piece of the house, or else stay at home and fling it all out of the windows."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

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Date: 1707

"See, see, he smiles amidst his Trance, / And shakes a visionary Lance, / His Brain is fill'd with loud Alarms, / Shouting Armies, clashing Arms, / The softer Prints of Love deface; / And Trumpets sound in ev'ry Trace."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

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Date: 1709, 1810

"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1710, 1714

"For Appetite, which is elder Brother to Reason, being the Lad of stronger Growth, is sure, on every contest, to take the advantage of drawing all to his own side."

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

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Date: 1710, 1714

"And Will, so highly boasted, is but at best, a Foot-Ball or Top between these Youngsters [Appetite and Reason], who prove very unfortunately match'd; till the youngest, instead of now and then a Kick or Lash bestow'd to little purpose, forsakes the Ball or Top it-self, and begins to lay about hi...

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

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Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]

"The Senses stand around; the Spirits roam / To seize and bring the fleeting Objects home: / Thro' every Nerve and every Pore they pass."

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

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Date: 1710, 1714

"Come not in a Troop, (ye Fancys!) Bring not your Objects crouding, to confound the Sight. But let me examine your Worth and Weight distinctly."

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

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Date: 1710, 1714

"Every Man indeed who is not absolutely beside himself, must of necessity hold his Fancys under some kind of Discipline and Management."

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

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Date: 1710, 1714

"'Tis easy to bring the Hero's Case home to our-selves; and see, in the ordinary Circumstances of Life, how Love, Ambition, and the gayer Tribe of Fancys (as well as the gloomy and dark Specters of another sort) prevail over our Mind, 'Tis easy to observe how they work on us, when we refuse to be...

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

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Date: 1711

"We must consider the Soul as the Skill of an Artificer, whilst the Organs of the Body are her Tools; for as the Body and its most minute Spirits are wholly insignificant, and cannot perform that Operation which we call thinking without the Soul more than the Tools of an Artificer, can do anythin...

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.