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: 1731

"Not that the Anticipations of Morality spring meerly from intellectual Forms and notional Idea's of the Mind, or from certain Rules or Propositions, arbitrarily printed upon the Soul as upon a Book, but from some other other more inward, and vital Principle, in intellectual Beings, as such, wher...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1732-5

"Thus, being by many Meditations of him (those Epistles written to him in his rasa Tabula, his Soul; than which nothing was more [end page 57] frequent; as appears by this Sentence, written not many Years since-- 'Nullus fuit Dies per hos multos Annos, in quo semel de Morte mea cogitavi') ...

— Peck, Francis (1692-1743)

Date: 1732

"But suppose my Mind white Paper, and without being at any pains to extirpate my Opinions, or prove your own, only say what you wou'd write thereon, or what you wou'd teach me in case I were teacheable."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1733, 1742

"I take the Mind or Soul of Man not to be so perfectly indifferent to receive all Impressions, as a Rasa Tabula, or white Paper."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1742 [see first edition, 1733]

"The Mind, like a Tabula rasa, easyly receives the first Impression; and, like that, when the first Impression is deeply made, it with Difficulty admits of an Erasement of the first Characters, which in some Minds are indelible"

— Cooke, Thomas (1703-1756)

Date: 1734

"The Memory is not only a Register of Tales, and Names, and Fictions, (the Materials of common Discourse) but may be called a Register of every thing that enters into the Senses and the Imagination."

— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)

Date: 1734

"The question is, how this Familiarity arises? and how the Cabinet comes to be sensible of any thing that's put into it? A Scritore knows nothing of the Papers which the careful Banker locks up in it? Or a Glass, tho' it may be said to receive the Image of a Beau, and he really sees somewhat of h...

— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)

Date: 1736

"It is the Opinion of a late ingenious Philosopher of our own Nation [Mr. Locke], and I think mankind are generally come into the same Way of thinking, 'That the Soul of Man is at first but a Tabula rasa, a Kind of fair unwritten Paper, till it has receieved Impressions form without, and i...

— Bernard, Thomas (1684/5-1755)

Date: May 6, 1736

"Others, with equal truth and justice, have likened the Minds of Children to a rasa Tabula, or white Paper, whereon we may imprint, or write what Characters we please; which will prove so lasting, as not to be effaced without injuring or destroying the Beauty of the whole."

— Denne, John (1693-1767)