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Date: 380-360 B.C.

"The body is held together at a certain tension between the extremes of hot and cold, and dry and wet, and so on, and our soul is a temperament or adjustment of these same extremes, when they are combined in just the right proportion."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

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Date: w. 350 B.C.

"Voice is a kind of sound characteristic of what has soul in it; nothing that is without soul utters voice, it being only by a metaphor that we speak of the voice of a flute or the lyre or generally of what (being without soul) possesses the power of producing a succession of notes which differ i...

— Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

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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)

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Date: 1676

"Music so softens and disarms the mind."

— Etherege, Sir George (1636-1691/2)

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Date: 1684

"Since Harmony, like Fire to VVax, does fit / The softned Heart Impressions to admit."

— Behn, Aphra (1640?-1689)

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Date: 1694

"For although the Soul is said to reside in one place, it operates in every part, exercising every Member, which are the Souls Instruments, by which she manifesteth her power; but if it so happen, that any of the Organical parts are out of Tune, the work is confused."

— Aristotle [pseud.]

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Date: 1710, 1714

"For the understanding here must have its mark, its characteristic note, by which it may be distinguished."

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

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Date: 1712

"How is the Image to the Sense convey'd? / On the tun'd Organ how the Impulse made? / How, and by which more noble Part the Brain / Perceives th'Idea, can their Schools explain? / 'Tis clear, in that Superior Seat alone / The Judge of Objects has her secret Throne."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1724

"One Law of the Action of the Soul on the Body, & vice versa, seems to be, That upon such and such Motions produced in the Musical Instrument of the Body, such and such Sensations should arise in the Mind; and on such and such Actions of the Soul, such and such Motions in the Body should ensue; m...

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)

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Date: 1729

"E'en not all these, in one rich lot combined, / Can make the happy man, without the mind; / Where judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys / The chain of reason with unerring gaze; / Where fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes, / His fairer scenes, and bolder figures rise; / Where social lov...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.