Date: 1754

"And so Dr. Edwards remarks of Socinus, that Adam, according to Him, had only the Faculty of Understanding, but none of the Accomplishments of it: His Mind being a pure rasa tabula, capable indeed of any Impressions, but having no Characters of Wisdom engraven upon it, by the Finger of God, when ...

— Holloway, Benjamin (1690/1-1759)

Date: January, 1754; 1791

"Survey the magnet's sympathetic love, / That wooes the yielding needle; contemplate / Th'attractive amber's power, invisible / Ev'n to the mental eye."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: January, 1754; 1791

"[B]affled here / By his omnipotence Philosophy / Slowly her thoughts inadequate revolves, / And stands, with all his circling wonders round her, / Like heavy Saturn in th'etherial space / Begirt with an inexplicable ring."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1754

"Such high regard on Piety I place, / On pure simplicity of life; a breast / Steel'd against bribes, by naked truth possess'd, / And with a spotless rigid conscience blest"

— Duncombe, John (1729-1786) [pseud.]

Date: 1755

"Now if the human understanding be, essentially and originally, a tabula rasa, susceptible of impression from the occurrence of every casual object, then the ideas it receives thereby will be the fountain, and, as it were, the materials of all its future proficiencies; and the number and e...

— Sharp, William, Vicar of Long Burton

Date: 1755

"By consequence, the several stages of its future perfection and advancement will fundamentally arise from the treasury it retains of all its primitive ideas."

— Sharp, William, Vicar of Long Burton

Date: February 1755

"See yon delicious woodbines rise / By oaks exalted to the skies, / So view in Harriot's matchless mind / Humility and greatness join'd."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1755

"Ideas of the same race, though not exactly alike, are sometimes so little different, that no words can express the dissimilitude, though the mind easily perceives it, when they are exhibited together; and sometimes there is such a confusion of acceptations, that discernment is wearied, and disti...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1755

"The imperfect sense of some examples I lamented, but could not remedy, and hope they will be compensated by innumerable passages selected with propriety, and preserved with exactness; some shining with sparks of imagination, and some replete with treasures of wisdom."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1755

"Those who have much leisure to think, will always be enlarging the stock of ideas, and every increase of knowledge, whether real or fancied, will produce new words, or combinations of words."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)