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Date: 1660, 1676

"In these men the principles are holy, the instruction perfect, the law remaining, the perswasions uncancelled; but against all this torrent there is a whirlwind of passions, and filthy resolutions, and wilfulness, which corrupt the heart, while as yet the head is uncorrupted in the direct rules ...

— Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, 1667)

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Date: 1664

"Indeed, one may compare the nerves of the machine I am describing with the pipes in the works of these fountains, its muscles and tendons with the various devices and springs which serve to set them in motion, its animal spirits with the water which drives them, the heart with the source of the ...

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

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Date: 1664

"And finally, when a rational soul is present in this machine it will have its principal seat in the brain, and reside there like the fountain-keeper who must be stationed at the tanks to which the fountain's pipes return if he wants to produce, or prevent, or change their movements in some way."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

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Date: 1665

"The like frailties are to be found in the Memory; we often let many things slip away from us, which deserve to be retain'd; and of those which we treasure up, a great part is either frivolous or false; and if good, and substantial, either in tract of time obliterated, or at best so overwhelmed a...

— Hooke, Robert (1635-1703)

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Date: 1666

"O truly royal! who behold the law, / And rule of beings in your Maker's mind; / And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw, / To fit the levelled use of humankind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

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Date: 1667

"Our mem'ries like the Cullender that streins / Pure liquor out, but drossie dregs reteins"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

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Date: 1667

"Yet all those billows in your breast did meet / A heart so firm, so loyal, and so sweet, / That over them you greater conquest made / Than your Immortal Father ever had."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

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Date: 1667

"The Conscience was ever, and is still / The fountain of all actions, good or ill;"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

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Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Yet soon he healed; for Spirits that live throughout / Vital in every part, not as frail man / In entrails, heart of head, liver or reins, / Cannot but by annihilating die; / Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound / Receive, no more than can the fluid air: / All heart they live, all head, all ...

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

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Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Thus with ten wounds / The river dragon tamed at length submits / To let his sojourners depart, and oft / Humbles his stubborn heart; but still, as ice / More hardened after thaw."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

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