"I have quoted from Mr. Locke, that the human Mind is a Tabula rasa, that any Thing may be writ upon it, and that it cannot have any Thing unless it be write there, but will remain a Blank for ever; that there is a vast variety of Inscriptions made on it, which shews that the Stuff must be the same, which is capable of receiving equally of many Millions of different Impressions."
— Philalethes [pseud.]
Author
Place of Publication
London: printed, Dublin
Publisher
Re-printed by George Faulkner
Date
1740
Metaphor
"I have quoted from Mr. Locke, that the human Mind is a Tabula rasa, that any Thing may be writ upon it, and that it cannot have any Thing unless it be write there, but will remain a Blank for ever; that there is a vast variety of Inscriptions made on it, which shews that the Stuff must be the same, which is capable of receiving equally of many Millions of different Impressions."
Metaphor in Context
[...] And I think that every Age and Nation, every Man that ever lived in any, every Thing that any Man knows, every Thing that he does not know, the Greek and Barbarian, the Attic flowing Eloquence and Laconic fullen thrift of Words, Mithridates, with his twenty two Languages, and the New-Guinea Savage with none, are all equally Proofs and Instances as well as what I have quoted from Mr. Locke, that the human Mind is a Tabula rasa, that any Thing may be writ upon it, and that it cannot have [end page 109] any Thing unless it be write there, but will remain a Blank for ever; that there is a vast variety of Inscriptions made on it, which shews that the Stuff must be the same, which is capable of receiving equally of many Millions of different Impressions.
(pp. 109-10)
(pp. 109-10)
Categories
Provenance
Searching "tabula rasa" in ECCO
Citation
Philalethes, Gentleman in the country. A philosophical dissertation upon the inlets to human knowledge, in a letter from a gentleman in the country to his friend at London. The second edition [Dublin], 1740. Based on information from English Short Title Catalogue. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale Group. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/ECCO
Theme
Blank Slate; Lockean Philosophy
Date of Entry
10/10/2006
