Date: 1660, 1676

"But thus the Enemy of Mankind hath prevailed upon us, while we were earnest in disputations about things less concerning: Then he was watchful and busy to interweave evil and uncertain principles into our Moral institutions, to intangle what was plain, to divide what was simple, to make an art o...

— Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, 1667)

Date: 1664

"Thus they also trace figures in these gaps, which correspond to those of the objects. At first they do this less easily and perfectly than they do on gland H, but gradually they do it better and better, as their action becomes stronger and lasts longer, or is repeated more often. That is why the...

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1665

Minds are "like smooth paper never writ upon, / When folded up, by some impression / Marks will remain it never had before, / And ne're return to former smoothness more."

— Howard, Sir Robert (1626-1698)

Date: 1675, 1746

"Were it so with the Soul (as some of the Philosophers have vainly imagined) to come into the World as an Ab rasa Tabula, a mere Blank or piece of white Paper, on which neither any Thing, written, nor any Blots; it would then be equally receptive of Good and Evil, and no more averse to the...

— Westminster Assembly (1643-1652)

Date: 1684

"You wish'd those Thoughts in bloody Ink were shrouded"

— Harington, John (1627-1700)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"It is an established Opinion amongst some Men, That there are in the Understanding certain innate principles; some primary Notions, [koinai ennoiai], Characters, as it were stamped upon the Mind of Man; which the Soul receives in its very first Being; and brings into the World with...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"But there is this farther Argument in it against their being innate: That these Characters, if they were native and original Impressions, should appear fairest and clearest in those Persons, in whom yet we find no Footsteps of them."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Hence naturally flows the great variety of Opinions, concerning Moral Rules, which are to be found amongst Men, according to the different sorts of Happiness, they have a Prospect of, or propose to themselves: Which could not be, if practical Principles were innate, and imprinted in our Minds im...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

Few mathematicians will believe that "all the diagrams they have drawn were but copies of those innate characters which nature had engraven upon their minds"

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"[W]hereas those innate principles are supposed to be quite of another nature; not coming into the mind by any accidental alterations in, or operations on the body; but, as it were, original characters impressed upon it, in the very first moment of its being and constitution."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)