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Date: 1709, 1810

"Nothing can describe the soul: / 'Tis a region half unknown, / That has treasures of its own. / More remote from public view / Than the bowels of Peru; / Broader 'tis, and brighter far, / Than the golden Indies are; / Ships that trace the wat'ry stage / Cannot coast it in an age; / Harts, or hor...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1709, 1810

"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1711

"The scorcht and pathless Desarts of the Brain, / Want proper Caves and Cells to entertain / A Crowd of airy Forms and long Ideal Train."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1712

"Which by her secret uncontested Nod / Her Messengers the Spirits sends abroad, / Thro' ev'ry nervous Pass, and ev'ry vital Road. / To fetch from ev'ry distant Part a Train, / Of outward Objects to enrich the Brain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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Date: 1712

"How Spirits, which for Sense and Motion serve, / Unguided find the perforated Nerve. / Thro' ev'ry dark Recess pursue their Flight, / Unconscious of the Road and void of Sight, / Yet certain of the End still guide their Motions right."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

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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)

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Date: 1744

"In the coarse drudgeries and sinks of Sense, / Your souls have quite worn out the make of Heaven, / By vice new-cast, and creatures of your own."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Oft misled / By that bland light, the young unpractis'd views / Of reason wander through a fatal road, / Far from their native aim."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

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