Date: April, 1778

"That the merited applause of mankind is highly valuable, and a great immediate incitement to act well, I certainly agree: and therefore to return to the image of the mind as a theatre, I would not have it close as an amphitheatre; but open to the inspection of the world."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: April, 1783

If human souls are of an essence pure, / How fix ideas in them to endure? / And if material, canst not thou, Monro, / The little cells of our ideas show?"

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: April, 1783

"When we talk of a storehouse of our ideas, we are only forming an imagination of something similar to an enclosed portion of space in which material objects are reposited. But who ever actually saw this storehouse, or can have any clear perception of it when he endeavours by thinking closely to ...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: April, 1783

"As, however, his penetration could not but see that all this is absolutely incompatible with a spiritual substance which mind is, he, immediately without any interruption or preparation whatever, proceeds very quietly, though most effectually, to contradict what he has been assuming, and to anni...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)