Date: 1718

"A thousand little Nerves She sends / Quite to our Toes, and Fingers Ends; / And These in Gratitude again / Return their Spirits to the Brain; / In which their Figure being printed / (As just before, I think, I hinted) / Alma inform'd can try the Case, / As She had seen upon the Place. // Thus, w...

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"Whilst, as my System says, the Mind / Is to these upper Rooms confin'd."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"Mature, if not improv'd, by Time / Up to the Heart She loves to climb: / From thence, compell'd by Craft and Age, / She makes the Head her latest Stage."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"But I can call to my Assistance / Proximity (mark that!) and Distance: / Can prove, that all Things, on Occasion, / Love Union, and desire Adhesion; / That Alma merely is a Scale; / And Motives, like the Weights, prevail."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"If neither Side turn down or up, / With Loss or Gain, with Fear or Hope; / The Balance always would hang ev'n, / Like Mah'met's Tomb, 'twixt Earth and Heav'n."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"Alma, They strenuously maintain, / Sits Cock-horse on Her Throne, the Brain; / And from that Seat of Thought dispenses / Her Sov'reign Pleasure to the Senses."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1741

"But when Studentio had once persuaded his Mind to tie itself down to this Method which I have prescribed, he sensibly gain'd an admirable Facility to read, and judge of what he read, by his daily Practice of it, and the Man made large Advances in the Pursuit of Truth; while Plumbinus and Plumeo ...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Their Understandings are hereby cooped up in narrow Bounds, so that they never look abroad into other Provinces of the intellectual World, which are more beautiful perhaps and more fruitful than their own."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"The ample Mind takes a Survey of several objects with one Glance, keeps them all within Sight and present to the Soul, that they may be compared together in their mutual Respects; it forms just Judgments, and it draws proper Inferences from this Comparison even to a great Length of Argument and ...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"For one obscure or confused Idea, especially if it be of great Importance in the Question, intermingled with many clear ones, and placed in its Variety of Aspects towards them, will be in Danger of spreading Confusion over the whole Scene of Ideas, and thus may have an unhappy Influence to overw...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)