Date: 1632

"Looke as it is with a Gold smith that melteth the metall that he is to make a vessell of, if after the melting thereof, there follow a cooling, it had beene as good it had never beene melted, it is as hard, haply harder, as unfit, haply unfitter, then it was before to make vessell of; but after ...

— Hooker, Richard (1554-1600)

Date: 1641

"I am not that structure of limbs which is called a human body. I am not even some thin vapour which permeates the limbs - a wind, fire, air, breath, or whatever I depict in my imagination; for these are things which I have supposed to be nothing."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1651

"Many erroneous opinions are about the essence and original of [the rational soul]; whether it be fire, as Zeno held; harmony, as Aristoxenus; number, as Xenocrates; whether it be organical, or inorganical; seated in the brain, heart or blood; mortal or immortal; how it comes into the body."

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1665

"But as though grains of Sand and Ashes be a part, but of a despicable smallness, and very easie, and liable to be scatter'd, and blown away; yet the skilful Artificer, by a vehement Fire, brings Numbers of these to afford him that noble substance, Glass, by whose help we may both see our selves,...

— Boyle, Robert (1627-1691)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"As soon as ever the Parts begin to be form'd by Nature, this Animal and active Principle begins to exert its Heat and Force, being lodged in the Heart as in the Centre of the Body, from whence, as the Vessels begin also to be form'd, it distributes it self towards the extreme Regions, communicat...

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"I shall not here enquire, though it may seem probable, that the Constitution of the Body does sometimes influence the Memory; since we oftentimes find a Disease quite strip the Mind of all its Ideas, and the flames of a Fever, in a few days, calcine all those Images to dust and confusion, which ...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1694

The soul is "a spark of the Divine Mind" and "a blast of Almighty Breath"

— Aristotle [pseud.]