Date: 1729

"What Numbers of learned Fools do we not meet with in large Libraries; from whose Works it is evident, that Knowledge must have lain in their Heads, as Furniture at an Upholder's; and the Treasure of the Brain was a Burden to them, instead of an Ornament!"

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

Date: 1729

"But as to the mysterious Structure of the Brain itself, and the more abstruse Oeconomy of it, that he knows nothing; but that the whole seems to be a medullary Substance, compactly treasur'd up in infinite Millions of imperceptible Cells, that dispos'd in an unconceivable Order, are cluster'd to...

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

Date: 1731

"Where I would only demand of these Philosophers, Whether this their so expert Smith or Architect, the Active Understanding, when he goes about his Work, doth know what he is to do with these Phantasms before-hand, what he is to make of them, and unto what Shape to bring them? I...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: June 1, 1732

"Oh! give me way, come all you Furies, come, / Lodge in th'unfurnish'd Chambers of my Heart, / My Heart which never shall be let again / To any Guest but endless Misery, / Never shall have a Bill upon it more."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1732

"Trace it to the fountain-head, and you shall not find that you had it by any of your senses, the only true means of discovering what is real and substantial in nature: you will find it lying amongst other old lumber in some obscure corner of the imagination, the proper receptacle of visions, fan...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1733

"May not the sentient Principle have its Seat in some Place in the Brain, where the Nerves terminate, like the Musician shut up in his Organ-Room? May not the infinite Windings, Convolutions, and Complications of the Beginning of the Nerves which constitute the Brain, serve to d...

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)

Date: 1734

"But what shall we think of this odd Treasury, which retains things during a certain time, and then loses them, even before the Infirmities of Age come on? We say a thing has dropt out of our head: (where does it drop?) and it drops in again when we least expect it. What Corners do those Images l...

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

Date: 1734

"If I but close my eyes, strange images / In thousand forms and thousand colours rise, / Stars, rainbows, moons, green dragons, bears and ghosts, / An endless medley rush upon the stage, / And dance and riot wild in reason's court / Above control."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1735

"That Thought romantic Memory detains / In unknown cells and in aereal chains; / Imagination thence her flow'rs translates, / And Fancy emulous of God, creates."

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)

Date: 1741

"This will gradually give the Mind a Faculty of surveying many objects at once; as a Room that is richly adorned and hung round with a great Variety of Pictures, strikes the Eye almost at once with all that Variety, especially if they have been well surveyed one by one at first: This makes it hab...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)