On Images (1775-1799)

"He who has not made the experiment, or who is not accustomed to require rigorous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge, and distinctness of imagery; how the succession of objects will be broken, how separate parts will be confused, and how many particular features and discriminations will be compressed and conglobated into one gross and general idea." (Samuel Johnson, "A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland", 1775)

"The schema is in itself always a product of imagination. Since, however, the synthesis of imagination aims at no special intuition, but only at unity in the determination of sensibility, the schema has to be distinguished from the image." (Immanuel Kant," Critique of Pure Reason", 1781)

"Language is the express image and picture of human thoughts [...]" (Thomas Reid, "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man", 1785)

"[...] if there were really such images in the mind, or in the brain, they could not be general, because every thing that really exists is an individual. Universals are neither acts of the mind, nor images in the mind." (Thomas Reid, "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man", 1785)

"Conceiving as well as projecting or resolving, are what the schoolmen called immanent acts of the mind, which produce nothing beyond themselves. But painting is a transitive act, which produces an effect distinct from the operation, and this effect is the picture. Let this therefore be always remembered, that what is commonly called the image of a thing in the mind, is no more than the act or operation of the mind in conceiving it." (Thomas Reid, "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man", 1785)

"Every theory in philosophy, which is built on pure conjecture, is an elephant; and every theory that is supported partly by fact, and partly by conjecture, is like Nebuchadnezzar's image, whose feet were partly of iron, and partly of clay." (Thomas Reid, "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man", 1785)

"If one should ask, ‘What is meant by conceiving a thing?’ we should very naturally answer, that it is having an image of it in the mind-and perhaps we could not explain the word better. This shews that conception, and the image of a thing in the mind, are synonymous expressions. The image in the mind, therefore, is not the object of conception, nor is it any effect produced by conception as a cause. It is conception itself. That very mode of thinking which we call conception, is by another name called an image in the mind." (Thomas Reid, "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man", 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 die original." (Thomas Reid, "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man", 1785)

"Nothing more readily gives the conception of a thing than the seeing an image of it. Hence, by a figure common in language, conception is called an image of the thing conceived. But to shew that it is not a real but a metaphorical image, it is called an image in the mind. We know nothing that is properly in the mind but thought; and, when anything else is said to be in the mind, the expression must be figurative, and signify some kind of thought." (Thomas Reid, "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man", 1785)

"Philosophers very unanimously maintain, that in conception there is a real image in the mind, which is the immediate object of conception, and distinct from the act of conceiving it. " (Thomas Reid, "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man", 1785)

"Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth." (William Blake,"The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", 1790)

"The imagination is an eye where images remain forever." (Joseph Joubert, [Letter to Revd. Dr. Trusler] 1799)