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Date: May 10, 1704

"But when a man's fancy gets astride his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when that is once compassed the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others,...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

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Date: May 10, 1704

"Whether Things that have Place in the Imagination, may not as properly be said to exist, as those that are seated in the Memory: which may be justly held in the affirmative, and very much to the advantage fo the former, since it is acknowledged to be the Womb of Things, and the other allowed to ...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

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Date: 1704

"The practitioners of this famous art proceed, in general, upon the following fundamental, that the corruption of the senses is the generation of the spirit; because the senses in men are so many avenues to the fort of reason, which, in this operation, is wholly blocked up."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

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Date: 1704

"Some again think that when our earthly tabernacles are disordered and desolate, shaken and out of repair, the spirit delights to dwell within them, as houses are said to be haunted, when they are forsaken and gone to decay."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

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Date: May 10, 1704

"Now it usually happens that these active spirits, getting possession of the brain, resemble those that haunt other waste and empty dwellings, which for want of business either vanish and carry away a piece of the house, or else stay at home and fling it all out of the windows."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

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Date: 1705

"It did the curious Instruments confound, / And all the winding Labarynths of Sound, / The charming Musick-Rooms, that entertain / The Soul high seated in her Throne the Brain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1705

A monarch may make "all her Subjects" "Friends to her Empire and "in their Hearts" lay "its deep Foundations"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1705

A bullet may efface "The num'rous Lodgings, which did entertain / All Mem'ry's crowded Guests, and Fancy's aeiry Train."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: Read 1680-1681, published 1705

"Memory then conceive to be nothing else but a Repository of Ideas formed partly by the Senses, but chiefly by the Soul it self: I say, partly by the Senses, because they are as it were the Collectors or Carriers of the Impressions made by Objects from without, delivering them to the Repository o...

— Hooke, Robert (1635-1703)

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Date: 1706

"Yes Sir, be certain on't, she shall be try'd; / Thro' all the winding Mazes of her Thoughts."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.