Date: 1744

"That philosopher [Aristotle] held that the mind of man was a tabula rasa, and that there were no innate ideas."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1744

"And notwithstanding the tabula rasa of Aristotle, yet some of his followers have undertaken to make him speak Plato's sense."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1746, 1749

"Such Rancour this, of such a poisonous Vein, / As never, never, shall my Paper stain: / Much less infect my Heart"

— Francis, Philip (1708-1773)

Date: 1753

Locke's "guiding Hand th'ideal Blank explores, / And opens wide the Senses' various Doors, / Thro' which the thronging Thoughts their Passage find, / In social Tribes, and stock the peopled Mind."

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)

Date: 1756

"But the Truth is, this unnatural Power corrupts both the Heart, and the Understanding. And to prevent the least Hope of Amendment, a King is ever surrounded by a Crowd of infamous Flatterers, who find their Account in keeping him from the least Light of Reason, till all Ideas of Rectitude and Ju...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Date: 1756, 1766

A recipe for sympathetic ink

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1760-7

"For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy blow he had sustain'd from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully reckon'd upon in his mind, and register'd down in his pocket-book, as a second staff for his old age, in case Bobby should fail him."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1762

"Is the beauty of truth, or moral actions, or the deformity of falsehood, or vice, capable of being represented on paper, or on any other plain, except the rasa tabula of the mind?"

— Griffith, Richard (d. 1788)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"Oh thou possessor of heavenly wisdom, would be this separation, this immeasurable distance from my friends, were I not able thus to delineate my heart upon paper, and to send thee daily a map of my mind."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"Here it was that I exulted in my success; no blot, no stain, appeared on any part of the faithful mirror. As when the large, unwritten page presents its snowy spotless bosom to the writer's hand; so appeared the glass to my view."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)