Date: 1754, 1793

"All-perfect Wisdom, on each living soul, / Engrav'd this mandate, 'to preserve their frame, And hold entire the gen'ral orb of being.'"

— Blacklock, Thomas (1721-1791)

Date: 1757

"Did I wait upon Bishop Gibson to acquaint him that I was a Free-thinker, that my mind was a tabula rasa!"

— Bower, Archibald (1686-1766)

Date: 1757

"Since, therefore, the mind of man appears of so loose and unsteddy a contexture, that, even at present, when so many persons find an interest in continually employing on it the chissel and the hammer, yet are they not able to engrave theological tenets with any lasting impression; how much more ...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1760

"A man this emptied and vacuated of self-conceit, these lines of natural pride, being blotted out, the soul is as a Tabula rasa, an unwritten table, to receive any impression of the law of God, that he pleases to put on it; and then his words are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to ...

— Binning, Hugh (1627-1653)

Date: January 1, 1760 - January 1, 1762; 1762

"[M]y guardian angel forsook me when she expired! her last injunctions are deep engraven on my heart!"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1766

"YOU see already, my dear patron, by the date of my letter, that I am arrived at the place of my destination; but you cannot see all the charms which I find in it; to do this, you should be acquainted with the situation, and be able to read my heart. You ought, however, to read at least those of ...

— Hume, David (1711-1776); with Rousseau, d'Alembert, and Walpole

Date: 1767

"He is now reduced to the greatest want and beggary, he is become a meer tabula rasa, a sheet of blank paper, a page of perfect inanity."

— Campbell, Archibald (bap. 1724, d. 1780)

Date: 1770

"It is a favourite maxim with Mr LOCKE, as it was with some ancient philosophers, that the human soul, previous to education, is like a piece of white paper, or tabula rasa, and this simile, harmless as it may appear, betrays our great modern into several important mistakes."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1771, 1776

"'Could History man's secret heart reveal, / 'And what imports a heaven-born mind to learn, / 'Her transcripts to explore what bosom would not yearn!"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1773

One may blot from his mind "the idea of future retribution"

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)