Date: 1769

"The first reverend sage who delivered himself on this mysterious subject, having stroked his grey beard, and hemmed thrice with great solemnity, declared that the soul was an animal; a second pronounced it to be the number three, or proportion; a third contended for the number seven, or harmony;...

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1771

"He thinks nothing more absurd than the common notion of Instruction, as if Science were to be poured into the Mind, like water into a cistern, that passively waits to receive all that comes."

— Harris, James (1709-1780)

Date: 1771

"Now as our Feet in vain venture to walk upon the River, till the Frost bind the Current, and harden the yielding Surface; so does the SOUL in vain seek to exert its higher Powers, the Powers I mean of REASON and INTELLECT, till IMAGINATION first fix the fluency of SENSE, and thus provide ...

— Harris, James (1709-1780)

Date: 1755, 1771

"The' etherial soul that Heaven itself inspires / With all its virtues, and with all its fires, / Led by these sirens to some wild extreme, / Sets in a vapour when it ought to beam; / Like a Dutch sun that in the' autumnal sky / Looks through a fog, and rises but to die."

— Cawthorn, James (1719-1761)

Date: 1771, 1816

"Thus man [like a cataract], the harpy of his own content, / With blust'ring passions, phrensically bent, / Wild in the rapid vortex whirls the soul, / Till reason bursts, impatient of controul."

— Maude, Thomas (1718-1798)

Date: 1771, 1816

"But now the wavy conflict tends to peace, / And jarring elements their tumults cease, / Placid below, the stream obsequious flows, / And silent wonders how fell Discord grows./ So the calm mind reviews her tortur'd state, / Resuming reason for the cool debate."

— Maude, Thomas (1718-1798)

Date: 1772

"No inference can give a juster idea of Des Cartes's doctrine of automata, than Mr. Regis's comparison of some hydraulic machines, to be seen in certain grottos and fountains, that serve as ornaments to the splendid mansions of the great; where water exerts itself by the disposition of the pipes,...

— Anonymous

Date: 1773

The mind may be "poured forth"

— Penny [née Hughes, formerly Christian], Anne (bap. 1729, d. 1780/4)

Date: 1773

An awful stillness may be breathed through the soul that, "As by a charm" causes "the waves of grief to subside" and stops the "headlong Tide" of "Impetuous Passion"

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1773

"Winter austere forbids me to aspire, / And northern tempests damp the rising fire; / They chill the tides of Fancy's flowing sea, / Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay."

— Wheatley, Phillis (c.1753–1784)