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...
preview | full record— Descartes, René (1596-1650)
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."
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"For Children, Ideots, Savages, and illiterate People, being of all others the least corrupted by Custom, or borrowed Opinions; Learning, and Education, having not cast their Native thoughts into new Moulds; nor by super-inducing foreign and studied Doctrines, confounded those fair Characters Nat...
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"Characters drawn on Dust, that the first breath of wind effaces; or Impressions made on a heap of Atoms, or animal Spirits, are altogether as useful, and render the Subject as noble, as the Thoughts of a Soul that perish in thinking; that once out of sight, are gone for ever, and leave no memory...
preview | full record— 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."
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"In all these cases, Ideas in the Mind, quickly fade, and often vanish quite out of the Understanding, leaving no more footsteps or remaining Characters of themselves, than Shadows do flying over fields of Corn; and the Mind is as void of them, as if they never had been there."
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"When the Ideas that offer themselves, (for as I have observed in another place, whilst we are awake, there will always be a train of Ideas succeeding one another in our Minds,) are taken notice of, and, as it were, registred in the Memory, it is Attention."
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1693
Locke's book is "designed for a Gentleman's Son, who being then very little, I considered only as white Paper, or Wax, to be moulded and fashioned as one pleases."
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1697
"All the Alarms and Troubles of the Soul blot out the Ideas that are already entertain'd, and hinder others from coming in. They obstruct all the Passages; and the Croud of thoughts that in such cases arise is a great hindrance to Memory."
preview | full record— D'Assigny, Marius (1643-1717)