Date: 1744

"That philosopher [Aristotle] held that the mind of man was a tabula rasa, and that there were no innate ideas."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1744

"And notwithstanding the tabula rasa of Aristotle, yet some of his followers have undertaken to make him speak Plato's sense."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1745

"We are told by Philosophers, of no small Note, that the Mind is, at first, a kind of Tabula rasa, or like a Piece of blank Paper, that it bears no original Inscriptions, when we come into the World,--that we owe all the Characters afterwards drawn upon it, to the Impressions made upon our Senses...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1745

"As little would I agree with those Philosophers Constant mentioned, that the Mind resembles a Leaf of white Paper."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1745

"They are plainly and explicitly published; easily understood; and in fair and legible characters writ in every man's heart; and the wisdom, reason, and necessity of them are readily discerned."

— Mason, John (1706-1763)

Date: 1748

"And how much more consistent is it with our Notions of a just God, and our boasted Freedom of Will, to supposed the Soul, when finished by its Creator, to be a pure tabula rasa, endued with only one extensive Faculty capable of guiding it through the dark Labyrinth of Life, then co...

— Loredano, Giovanni Francesco (1607-1661)

Date: 1748, 1777

"It may, therefore, be a subject worthy of curiosity, to enquire what is the nature of that evidence, which assures us of any real existence and matter of fact, beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the records of our memory."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1754

The law "is within us, ever present with us, ever active and incumbent on the Mind, and engraven on the Heart in the fair and large Signatures of Conscience, Natural Affection, Compassion, Gratitude, and universal Benevolence."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"Nature has therefore endued us with a MIDDLE FACULTY, wonderfully adapted to our MIXED State, which holds partly of Sense and partly of Reason, being strongly allied to the former, and the common Receptacle in which all the Notices that come from that quarter are treasured up, and yet greatly su...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"But as the structure of this organ is such, that when once the eye formed for vision has received the pictures of objects, the brain cannot help seeing their images and differences: in the same manner when the signs of these differences are marked or ingraved in the brain, the soul must necessar...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)