Date: 1727

"We rather take Notice of this here; Because this Philosophy had made the Mind a Rasa Tabula, or a Blank Paper, or an Empty and Void Room without any Furniture, which therefore it was to Supply; And this is done by Storing it with it's Simple Ideas from Sensation and Reflection, and from thence D...

— Greene, Robert (c. 1678-1730)

Date: Friday, April 14, 1727

"A Man of true Honour will as soon break open a Lock as a Letter, which does not belong to him; and pick his Neighbour's Pocket, as soon as discover his Nakedness in this Respect; for a Letter, being the Representative of the Person's Heart, who sends it, ought to pass, without Examination or Int...

— Caleb d'Anvers [pseud. for Nicholas Amhurst, Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke, and William Pulteney, Earl of Bath]

Date: 1729

"Secondly, 'Tis just matter of wonder & astonishment that ever one spark of faith was kindled in such an heart as thine is; [end page 124] an heart which had no predisposition or inclination in the least to believe; yea, it was not rasa tabula, like clean paper, void of any impression of f...

— Flavell, John (bap. 1630, d. 1691)

Date: April 30, 1730

"Nay, the very insipid phlegm, and even the caput mortuum of the brain, after this chemical operation, being mixed with ink, and spred upon paper, have the same combustible, noisy qualities, with the spirits themselves."

— Richard Russel and John Martyn

Date: 1731

"For as the Mind of God, which is the Archetypal Intellect, is that whereby he always actually comprehends himself, and his own Fecundity, or the Extent of his own Infinite Goodness and Power; that is, the Possibility of all things; So all Created Intellects being being certain Ectypal Models, or...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1731

"But the Soul, as by a certain secret Instinct, and as it were by Compact, understanding Nature's Language, as soon as these Local Motions are made in the Brain, doth not fix its Attention immediately upon those Motions themselves, as we do not use to do in Discourse upon meer Sounds, but present...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1755

"[...] a Storehouse, as it were, with Bags, Shelves, and Drawers, to lodge Ideas in, and, at the same Time, to compare these Impressions, such as a Seal makes upon Wax, (when Impressions are worn out, how are they to be renewed without a fresh Application of the Seal?) Footsteps, Traces, &c. and ...

— Richardson, J. of Newent (fl. 1755)

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: September 1, 1759.

" Ideas are retained by renovation of that impression which time is always wearing away, and which new images are striving to obliterate."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1761

The mind of the hearer might very well be a tabula rasa, free from every prejudice, and like soft wax, susceptible of every impression; and with all this, not yield to truth itself, proposed in the manner it is every day proposed, under the appearance of falsehood."

— Batteaux, Charles (1713-1780)