Date: c. 1603

"When, however, you gave out the falsehood that truth is, as it were, the native inhabitant of the human mind and need not come in from, outside to take up its abode there; when you turned our minds away from observation, away from things, to which it is impossible we should ever be sufficiently ...

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1652

"So that Reason is the Pen by which Nature writes this Law of her own composing; This Law 'tis publisht by Authority from heaven, and Reason is the Printer: This eye of the soul 'tis to spy out all dangers and all advantages, all conveniences and disconveniences in reference to such a being, and ...

— Culverwell, Nathanael (bap. 1619, d. 1651)

Date: 1710, 1714

"You would wonder to hear how close he pushes matters and how thoroughly he carries on the business of self-dissection. By virtue of this soliloquy, he becomes two distinct persons. He is pupil and preceptor. He teaches and he learns."

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

Date: Friday, April 21, 1727

"For though it is generally believed that few Statesmen are much afflicted with this terrible Inmate; yet, upon a careful Inspection of human Nature, I find it to be a vulgar Error; and am fully satisfied that, notwithstanding the outward placid Behaviour and smiling Aspect of t...

— Caleb d'Anvers [pseud. for Nicholas Amhurst, Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke, and William Pulteney, Earl of Bath]

Date: 1731

"Lastly, from hence is that strange Parturiency that is often observed in the Mind, when it is sollicitously set upon the Investigation of some Truth, whereby it doth endeavour, by ruminating and revolving within it self as it were to conceive it within itself, to bring it forth out of its own Wo...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)