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Date: 1700, 1712

"And so our Saviour tells us, that 'whosoever committeth sin is the Servant of sin'; and this is the vilest and hardest Slavery in the World, because it is the Servitude of the Soul, the best and noblest part of our selves; 'tis the subjection of our Reason, which ought to rule and bear Sway over...

— Tillotson, John (1630-1694)

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Date: 1711

"Passions impatient of the Rein, disown / Reason's Dominion, and usurp her Throne."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1712, 1736

There are sovereign Lords "Whom Lust controuls, and wild Desires direct; / The Reigns of Empire but such Hands disgrace, / Where Passion, a blind Driver, guides the Race."

— Granville, George, Baron Lansdowne (1666-1735)

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Date: 1722

"When religious passions, namely, love, desire, hope and delight are exalted in the highest degree, and agitate the soul with the greatest vehemence, while reason presides as sovereign, holds the reins, and directs all their motions; this is so far from being a wild and extravagant temper of mind...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1733-4

"And hence one Master Passion in the breast, / Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

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Date: 1742

"So bounded are its haughty lord's delights / To Woe's wide empire; where deep troubles toss, / Loud sorrows howl, envenom'd passions bite, / Ravenous calamities our vitals seize, / And threatening fate wide opens to devour."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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Date: 1744

"Like the proud Eastern [Nebuchadnezzar], struck by Providence, / What, though our passions are run mad, and stoop, / With low terrestrial appetite, to graze / On trash, on toys, dethroned from high desire?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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Date: 1744

"Sense! take the rein; blind Passion! drive us on; / And, Ignorance! befriend us on our way; / Ye new, but truest patrons of our peace! Yes; give the Pulse full empire; live the Brute, / Since as the Brute we die."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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Date: 1748, 1749

"It is ridiculous to exclaim against the dominion of the will. For one order which it gives, a hundred times does it come under the yoke."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

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Date: 1752, 1791

"Know too, the joys of sense controul, / And clog the motions of the soul; / Forbid her pinions to aspire, / Damp and impair her native fire: / And sure as Sense (that tyrant!) reigns, / She holds the empress, Soul, in chains."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

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