"The want of air and exercise, with interrupted digestion, unhinges the bodily frame: and the mind, long and violently exerted in one direction, like a bow long bent, loses its elasticity, and, unable  to recover itself, remains stupidly fixed in the same distorted posture"
Of Imagination [from Dissertations Moral and Critical]
At least 2 entries in ESTC (1783).<br>
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Beattie, James. <u>Dissertations Moral and Critical</u>. Printed for Strahan, Cadell, and Creech: London, 1783. Facsimile-Reprint: Friedrich Frommann Verlag, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1970.