Date: 1628

The young soul is likened to "a white paper unscribled with observations of the world, wherewith at length it becomes a blurr'd Note-booke"

— Earle, John (1601-1665)

Date: 1633

"The mind, you know is like a Table-Book"

— Donne, John (1572-1631)

Date: 1636

"So some have looked over their hearts by signs at one time, and have to their thinking found nothing but hypocrisy, unbelief, hardness, self-seeking; but not long after, examining their hearts again by the same signs, they have espied the image of God drawn fairly upon the table of their hearts."

— Goodwin, Thomas (1600-1680)

Date: 1639

"[T]he onely rule of our conscience, is the Law of God written in our hearts."

— Ames, William (1576-1633)

Date: 1639

"There are some principles so cleare, and written in the hearts of all men, that they cannot erre to obey and practise them."

— Ames, William (1576-1633)

Date: 1639

"[T]he Law of Nature" of "the Law of God ... is naturally written in the hearts of all men."

— Ames, William (1576-1633)

Date: MS. 1640, 1650

"[T]here is no doubt, if the true doctrine concerning the law of nature, and the properties of a body politic, and the nature of law in general, were perspicuously set down, and taught in the Universities, but that young men, who come thither void of prejudice, and whose minds are yet as white pa...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: MS. 1640, 1650

"For certainly men are not otherwise so unequal in capacity as the evidence is unequal of what is taught by the mathematicians, and what is commonly discoursed of in other books: and therefore if the minds of men were all of white paper, they would almost equally be disposed to acknowledge whatso...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1644, 1647

False judgments stick in the memory and are difficult to erase

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1646

"For by naturall birth, all men are equally and alike borne to like propriety, liberty, and freedome, and as we are delivered of God by the hand of nature into this world, every one with a naturall, innate freedome and propriety (as it were writ in the table of every mans heart, never to be oblit...

— Overton, Richard (fl. 1640-1663)