Date: 1697

"The Brain in Sleep is moist, something like that of Infants or Children: And you wou'd put a Child to a hard Task, to tell you at Night, all that had pass'd that Day in his Play or his Talk, and much more in his Thoughts."

— Burnet, Thomas (c.1635-1715)

Date: 1697

The soul may be a "Modification or Power of the Body" so that it eventually ceases to act, "either perishing, as a Flame when the Fewel is spent; or returning to its Fountain, whatsoever it was"

— Burnet, Thomas (c.1635-1715)

Date: 1700

"It is true, that the word Baptism is often taken in a Figurative and Allegorical Sense, to mean the INWARD BAPTISM, the Washing, or Cleansing of the Heart: But so is the word Washing also, as often, as Jer. iv. 14. &c. And there is scarce a Word in the World but is capable of many Figurative an...

— Leslie, Charles (1650-1722)

Date: 1710, 1714

"And the prince of this latter tribe may be proved to have been a great frequenter of the wood and river banks, where he consumed abundance of his breath, suffered his fancy to evaporate, and reduced the vehemence both of his spirit and voice."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1755

"So eager and intangled was our Hidalgo in this kind of history, that he would often read from morning to night, and from night to morning again, without interruption; till at last, the moisture of his brain being quite exhausted with indefatigable watching and study, he fairly lost his wits."

— Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de (1547-1616); Smollett, Tobias (1721-1771)

Date: 1765

Thought may melt

— Collins, William (1721-1759)

Date: 1767

His existence is now at last in no danger of comminution, but then his powers are absolutely gone and quite evaporated. In a word, he is as dry and empty as a beer barrel after it has been some time set a-broach to a drunken mob at a general election."

— Campbell, Archibald (bap. 1724, d. 1780)

Date: 1807-8

"[T]hrough the cells / And channels of his phrensy-stricken brain / Rage and confusion rush'd; the solemn peal / Broke on his ear like his salvation's knell, / Whilst his vext conscience struggled, but too late, / To rend th' insatiate demon from his heart"

— Burges, Sir James Bland (1752-1824)

Date: 1807-8

"So minds debas'd can torture gen'rous acts: / And thus, by terrors haunted, hunger-pinch'd, / Hag-ridden by the demon at their hearts, / Suspicious, tost from thought to thought, they watch'd / The lagging hours of night"

— Burges, Sir James Bland (1752-1824)