Date: 1789
"I conceive that a newly created spiritual substance would be a perfect tabula rasa, without a single idea till it was supplied by its own experience and reflection; nor can I understand how matter, mere matter, unconnected with a really active substance, could begin to perceive or ...
preview | full record— Holmes, Edward (1737/8-1799)
Date: 1791
"Again, when he uses the metaphor of white paper, &c. he marks very clearly, by the terms (as we [end page 68] say that it is not strict philosophical language, but designed as an elucidation of the subject, addressed through the medium of the senses, to the conceptions of the world in general."
preview | full record— Thomas, Daniel (b. 1748)
Date: February 1791
"Call to mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when they are solemnly recognised by all."
preview | full record— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)
Date: 1794
"Therefore I take the mind or soul of men to be so perfectly indifferent to receive all impressions, as a rasa tabula, or white paper, &c."
preview | full record— Morell, Thomas (1703-1784)
Date: 1794
"The mind is not a rasa tabula, though, at the same time, it must be allowed, we gain no actual knowledge of the latent ideas which it possesses, but as they are awakened by reflection and experience."
preview | full record— Sullivan, Richard Joseph, Sir (1752-1806)
Date: 1794
"The rasa tabula will not allow us to have mental ideas."
preview | full record— Sullivan, Richard Joseph, Sir (1752-1806)
Date: 1795
"A soft sponginess of character that will easily acquire any hue, or any stain; a tabula rasa of intellect; a spirit invulnerable to insult; that (for example) after vain endeavors to disunite and discourage the Catholics of Ireland, could condescend to [end page 2] truck and chaffer, for the off...
preview | full record— Drennan, William (1754-1820)
Date: 1795
"The infant mind has been compared to a tabula rasa, or sheet of clean paper: but there is this essential difference, as hath been well observed, between the opposite objects of comparison they are not both equally Indifferent to the inscription which they are to bear."
preview | full record— Napleton, John (1738/9-1817)
Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)
"The action of the pen will doubtless imprint an idea on the mind as well as on the paper: but I much question whether the benefits of this laborious method are adequate to the waste of time; and I must agree with Dr. Johnson, (Idler, No. 74.) 'that what is twice read, is commonly better remember...
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1797
"Their [young persons'] minds are like a sheet of white paper, which takes any impression that it is proposed to make upon it."
preview | full record— Godwin, William (1756-1836)