Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"Let us but consider a little the Receptacles of Images, the Regions of Imagination, the curious formation in all the Instruments of Sense; to which we may add the activity and subtlety of the Spirits, the delicate Contexture of the Nerves, the various Articulations of the Voice, the Harmony of F...

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"For, though he that contemplates the Operations of his Mind, cannot but have plain and clear Ideas of them; yet unless he turn his Thoughts that way, and considers them attentively, he will no more have clear and distinct Ideas of all the Operations of his Mind, and all that may be observed ther...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1697

Locke's readers are "led into a Wood of Idea's ... and there they are lost; pleasantly indeed, amongst Lights and Shades, and many pretty Landskips"

— Burnet, Thomas (c.1635-1715)

Date: 1699, 1714

"'Tis thus, at last, that A MIND becomes a Wilderness; where all is laid waste, every thing fair and goodly remov'd, and nothing extant beside what is savage and deform'd."

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

Date: 1710, 1714

"This indeed is but too certain; That as long as we enjoy a Mind; as long as we have Appetites and Sense, the Fancys of all kinds will be hard at work; and whether we are in company, or alone, they must range still, and be active. They must have their Field. The Question is, Whether they shall ha...

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

Date: Monday, June 18, 1711

"The latter [the fool and his passions] is like the Owner of a barren Country that fills his Eye with the Prospect of naked Hills and Plains, which produce nothing either profitable or ornamental; the other [the wise man and his ideas] beholds a beautiful and spacious Landskip divided into deligh...

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Tuesday, January 15, 1712

"We discovered several little Roads or Canals running from the Ear into the Brain, and took particular care to trace them out through their several Passages."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Wednesday, July 2, 1712

"Our Reason can pursue a Particle of Matter through an infinite Variety of Divisions, but the Fancy soon loses sight of it, and feels in it self a kind of Chasm, that wants to be filled with Matter of a more sensible Bulk."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: 1722

"And here indeed I have been often put upon a serious Consideration, how such a Heap of Pultis like Matter, a kind of Quag or Bog, and which as Sydenham observes, carries so little Analogy in its Form, and appears seemingly so unlikely to manage an Office of Intelligence, should yet be qualified ...

— Turner, Daniel (1667-1741)

Date: 1726

"I know in descriptions of this nature the scenes are generally supposed to grow out of the author's imagination, and if they are not charming in all their parts, the reader never imputes it to the want of sun or soil, but to the barrenness of invention"

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)