Date: 1711

"And reflecting on what is transacted within us, it seems to me a very diverting Scene to think when we strive to recollect something that does not then occur; how nimbly those volatil Messengers of ours will beat through all the Paths, and hunt every Enclosure of the Organ set aside for thinking...

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

Date: Tuesday, January 15, 1712

"We discovered several little Roads or Canals running from the Ear into the Brain, and took particular care to trace them out through their several Passages."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Wednesday, July 2, 1712

"Our Reason can pursue a Particle of Matter through an infinite Variety of Divisions, but the Fancy soon loses sight of it, and feels in it self a kind of Chasm, that wants to be filled with Matter of a more sensible Bulk."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: 1713

"Sometimes, to wander through perfumed groves, or enamelled meadows, in the fancy of a poet."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1722

"And here indeed I have been often put upon a serious Consideration, how such a Heap of Pultis like Matter, a kind of Quag or Bog, and which as Sydenham observes, carries so little Analogy in its Form, and appears seemingly so unlikely to manage an Office of Intelligence, should yet be qualified ...

— Turner, Daniel (1667-1741)

Date: 1726

"I know in descriptions of this nature the scenes are generally supposed to grow out of the author's imagination, and if they are not charming in all their parts, the reader never imputes it to the want of sun or soil, but to the barrenness of invention"

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: 1728 (1733)

"Shall he shut up all the Avenues of his Body, by which External Objects have access to affect his Mind ? And shall he rob the Mind her self of all Thought and Reflection?"

— Campbell, Archibald (1691-1756)

Date: 1732

"You must know, said he, that the mind of man may be fitly compared to a piece of land. What stubbing, ploughing, digging, and harrowing is to the one, that thinking, reflecting, examining is to the other."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1737, 1743

"It is not so much the being exempt from Faults, as the having overcome them, that is an Advantage to us; it being with the Follies of the Mind as with the Weeds of a Field, which, if destroyed and consumed upon the place of their Birth, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung the...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1740

"To the instructed Man [Ideas of Sensation] afford a vast Quantity of Materials to exercise Knowledge on, but without being taught that [end page 26] Knowledge to apply them to artificial Purposes, they would signify no more to us, besides assisting the Instincts to take Care of that Body they we...

— Philalethes [pseud.]