Date: c. 1603
"But do you suppose, when all the approaches and entrances to men's minds are beset and blocked by the most obscure idols -- idols deeply implanted and, as it were, burned in -- that any clean and polished surface remains in the mirror of the mind on which the genuine natural light of things can ...
preview | full record— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)
Date: 1615
"The eyes are the discouerers of the mind, as the countenance is the Image of the same; by the eyes as by a window, you may looke euen into the secret corners of the Soule: so that it was well sayde of Alexander ... that the eyes are the mirror or Looking-glasse of the Soule."
preview | full record— Crooke, Helkiah (1576-1648)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
Internal and external sensation, "These alone, as far as I can discover, are the windows by which light is let into this dark room: For methinks the understanding is not much unlike a closet wholly shut from light, with only some little openings left, to let in external visible resemblances, or i...
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"Would the pictures coming into such a dark room but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them"
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1701, 1704
"The application of our Thoughts to other Subjects is like looking upon the Rays of the Sun as it shines to us from a Wall, or upon the Image of it as it returns from a Watry Mirrour, but this is looking up directly against the Fons veri lucidus, the bright Source of Intellectual Light a...
preview | full record— Norris, John (1657-1712)
Date: Tuesday, January 15, 1712
"The Pineal Gland, which many of our Modern Philosophers suppose to be the Seat of the Soul, smelt very strong of Essence and Orange-flower Water, and was encompassed with a kind of Horny Substance, cut into a thousand little Faces or Mirrours, which were imperceptible to the naked Eye, insomuch ...
preview | full record— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)
Date: 1715
"Speech was given to Man as the Image and Interpreter of the Soul: It is anime index & speculum, the Messenger of the Heart, the Gate by which all that is within issues forth, and comes into open View."
preview | full record— Bulstrode, Richard, Sir (1610-1711)
Date: 1782
"We now perceive every [idea], as it passes, through a small aperture separately, as in the camera obscura, and this we call time; but at the conclusion of this state we may probably exist in a manner quite different; the window may be thrown open, the whole prospect appear at one view, and all t...
preview | full record— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787)
Date: 1792
"The imagination becomes a camera obscura, only with this difference, that the camera represents objects as they really are; while the imagination, impressed with the most beautiful scenes, and chastened by rules of art, forms it's pictures, not only from the most admirable parts of nature; but i...
preview | full record— Gilpin, William (1724-1804)