Date: w. 1628, published in 1684, 1701

"The writers displayed many geometrical truths before my very eyes, as it were, and derived them by means of logical arguments"

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: w. 1628, published in 1684, 1701

"We can best learn how mental intuition is to be employed by comparing it with ordinary vision."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: w. 1628, published in 1684, 1701

"Moreover, as we said, we should not contemplate, in one and the same visual or mental gaze, more than two of the innumerable different dimensions which it is possible to depict in the imagination."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1741

"Without Memory the Soul of Man would be but a poor destitute naked Being, with an everlasting Blank spread over it, except the fleeting ideas of the present Moment."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Such practices may happen to discourage and jade the Mind by an Attempt above its Power, it may balk the Understanding, and create an Aversion to future Diligence, and perhaps by Despair may forbid the Pursuit of that subject for ever afterwards; as a Limb over-strained by lifting a Weight above...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Yet there should be a Caution given in some Cases: the Memory of a Child or any infirm person should not be over-burdened; for a Limb or a Joint may be overstrained by being too much loaded, and its natural Power never be recovered."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1764

"Such principles are parts of our constitution, no less than the power of thinking: reason can neither make nor destroy them; nor can it do any thing without them: it is like a telescope, which may help a man to see farther, who hath eyes; but without eyes, a telescope shows nothing at all."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1764

"The fabric of the human mind is intricate and wonderful, as well as that of the structure of the human body. The faculties of the one are with no less wisdom adpated to their several ends, than the organs of the other."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1764

"All that we know of the body, is owing to anatomical dissection and observation, and it must be by an anatomy of the mind that we can discover its powers and principles."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1764

"But the anatomist of the mind cannot have the same advantage."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)