NICOLAS MALEBRANCHE (1638-1715)

“There’s nothing less active than matter,

Struck balls are not hit by the batter;

For the only true cause

Is the oomph of God’s laws:

So ice cream does not make you fatter."

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

“If I pick up an acorn, it’s mine,

After pressing my grapes, that’s my wine,

And once trading for goods

Comes to all neighborhoods,

The unequal results are just fine."

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

“Volition’s a magical potion,

Producing an action from motion.

But if will wills to will,

Then it’s willing things still:

Regress is a powerful notion."

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

There once was a man named John Locke,

Who liked finding Cartesians to mocke.

But when those on his side

Judged that Jekyll was Hyde,

'Twas a real metaphysical shocke.

Note: In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke argues that a person is “a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider it self as it self, the same thinking thing in different times and places”.  He goes on to say that sameness of person is determined by sameness of consciousness.  He asks us to “suppose two distinct incommunicable consciousnesses acting the same Body, the one constantly by Day, the other by Night”, and claims that the Day-Man and the Night-Man would be “as distinct Persons, as Socrates and Plato”.  So Locke would say that Jekyll and Hyde are different persons.  Cartesians, who think that persons are souls, would say that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person, as long as the same soul thinks in the same body by day and by night.

BARUCH SPINOZA (1632-1677)

Spinoza says there’s but one substance,

For God needs no ontic assistance.

But we are of the sort

That needs ontic support:

'Tween God and his modes there's no distance.

BARUCH SPINOZA (1632-1677)

Spinoza was once widely hated

For tsoris that he instigated.

For he said we’d be free

If we truly could be

From stupid beliefs liberated.

GABRIELLE SUCHON (1631-1703)

“To a neutralist, freedom’s the thing,

Both no convent and no wedding ring.

With no husband’s commands

And no social demands,

There's some time to enjoy one more fling."

ANNE CONWAY (1631-1679)

“There are some who think matter is dead,

And that soul moves the brain in one’s head.

But a thing that’s alive

Can’t move stuff that can’t jive,

That's the vitalist truth," so Anne said.