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Date: 1637

"Now a painter cannot represent all the different sides of a solid body equally well on his flat canvas, and so he chooses one of the principal ones, sets it facing the light, and shades the others so as to make them stand out only when viewed from the perspective of the chosen side. In just the ...

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

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Date: 1705, 1714, 1732

"This has often made me compare the Virtues of great Men to your large China Jars: they make a fine Shew, and are Ornamental even to a Chimney; one would by the Bulk they appear in, and the Value that is set upon 'em, think they might be very useful, but look into a thousand of them, and you'll f...

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

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Date: 1718, 1747

"A piece of sculpture admirably wrought is put out to view, but, to preserve it against the injuries of the weather, or for some other reason, is varnished over. Every body extols the artist, and is pleased with his work; and yet no one sees that which was the immediate subject of his art, being ...

— Grove, Henry (1684-1738)

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Date: 1731

"For as the Mind of God, which is the Archetypal Intellect, is that whereby he always actually comprehends himself, and his own Fecundity, or the Extent of his own Infinite Goodness and Power; that is, the Possibility of all things; So all Created Intellects being being certain Ectypal Models, or...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

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Date: 1731

"That there are some Ideas of the Mind which were not stamped or imprinted upon it from the Sensible Objects without, and therefore must needs arise from the Innate Vigour and Activity of the Mind it self, is evident, in that there are, First, Ideas of such things as neither are Affections of Bod...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

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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)

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Date: 1741

"This will gradually give the Mind a Faculty of surveying many objects at once; as a Room that is richly adorned and hung round with a great Variety of Pictures, strikes the Eye almost at once with all that Variety, especially if they have been well surveyed one by one at first: This makes it hab...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1765

"If all [the mind] had was the mere capacity to receive those items of knowledge--a passive power to do so, as indeterminate as the power of wax to receive shapes or of a blank page to receive words--it would not be the source of necessary truths"

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)

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Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"Only this more. The ideas--my lodgers--are of all sorts. Some, gentlemen of the law, who pay me a great deal more than others. Divines of all sorts have been with me, and have ever disturbed me. When I first took up house, Presbyterian ministers used to make me melancholy with dreary tones. Meth...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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Date: 1785

"Language is the express image and picture of human thoughts; and, from the picture, we may often draw very certain conclusions with regard to the original."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

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