Date: 1729

"So that all we can know of this Consciousness is, that it consists in, or is the Result of, the running and rummaging of the Spirits through all the Mazes of the Brain, and their looking there for Facts concerning ourselves"

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

Date: 1729

"The Soul, whilst in the Body, cannot be said to think, otherwise than an Architect is said to build a House, where the Carpenters, Bricklayers, &c. do the Work, which he chalks out and superintends."

— 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

"And first of all, that the Soul is not a meer Rasa Tabula, a naked and Passive Thing, which has no innate Furniture or Activity its own, nor any thing at all in it, but what was impressed on it from without."

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1731

"To have not only Reason degraded and dethroned, but even Sense it self Perverted or extinguished, and in the room, thereof boisterous Phantasms protruded from the Irrational Appetites, Passions and Affections (now grown Monstrous and Enormous) to become the very Sensations of it, by means whereo...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1731

"But that which imposes upon Mens Judgements here, so as to make them think, that these are all Passive Impressions made upon the Soul by the Objects of Sense, is nothing else but this; because the Notions both of those Relative Ideas, and also of those other other Immaterial things, (as Vertue, ...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

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: November, 1732

"Vulcan's Man ought to have had a Window in his Breast, to see what pass'd within."

— Anonymous

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

"OR, in a more gross Similitude, the Intelligent Principle is like a Bell in a Steeple, to which there are an infinite Number of Hammers all around it, with Ropes of all Lengths, terminating or touching at every Point of the Surface of the Trunk or Case, one of whose Extremities being pull'd or t...

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)