Date: 1653

"If flattering Language all the Passions rule, / Then Sense, I feare, will be a meere dull Foole."

— Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

Date: 1653

"A Poet I am neither borne, nor bred,/ But to a witty Poet married: / Whose Braine is Fresh, and Pleasant, as the Spring, / Where Fancies grow, and where the Muses sing."

— Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

Date: 1654

"[T]here are cases wherein this law must vaile to an higher, which is the law of Conscience: Woe be to that man who shall tye himselfe so close to the letter of the law, as to make shipwrack of conscience; And that bird in his bosome will tell him, that if upon what ever pretences, he shall willi...

— Hall, Joseph (1574-1656)

Date: 1656

"Though there be no formal commonwealth or family either in the body or in the soul of man, yet there is a subordination in the body, of the inferior members to the head; there is a subordination in the soul, of the inferior faculties to the rational will." [Metaphor is Bramhall's]

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1657

The fancy is "Commanding Empress of the brain, ubiquitary, faculty."

— Poole, Joshua (c.1615–c.1656)

Date: 1658

In "Man's head ... madam Reason is enthron'd, her grace / Reignes like an Empress in the highest place."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"My lady Will, resideth in the brain; / The Judgment there, there doth Minerva raigne"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1659

"And therefore it is the meer Imperium of our Soule that does determine the Spirits to this Muscle rather then the other, and holds them there in despite of externall force."

— More, Henry (1614-1687)

Date: 1659

"But this makes little to the clearing of the manner of their descent ... which cannot be better understood, then by considering their Union with the Body generated, or indeed with any kinde of Body whatever, where the Soul is held captive, and cannot quit her self thereof by the free imperium of...

— More, Henry (1614-1687)

Date: 1659

"But no man can when he pleases pass out of his Body thus, by the Imperium of his Will, no more then he can walk in his Sleep: For this capacity is pressed down more deep into the lower life of the Soul, whither neither the Liberty of Will, nor free Imagination can reach."

— More, Henry (1614-1687)