As suggested by an 1812 contribution to Robert Southey's Omniana , the guiding principle of Coleridge's work on cognition is that "pathology is the crucible of physiology" (Works 11, 1:333).

The first reference to Don Quixote by Coleridge appears in his essay "The Soul and its Organs of Sense," published in Robert Southey's Omniana in 1812.5 Carl Woodring notes that he had planned for a lecture on Don Quixote in 1812 (Coleridge, Table Talk 1: 322n).