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: 1751

An "indelible esteem" may be engraven on the heart

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1753

One may "contemplate the catastrophe of such a wicked life, that the moral might be the more deeply engraved on his remembrance"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1754, 1793

"All-perfect Wisdom, on each living soul, / Engrav'd this mandate, 'to preserve their frame, And hold entire the gen'ral orb of being.'"

— Blacklock, Thomas (1721-1791)

Date: 1757

"Did I wait upon Bishop Gibson to acquaint him that I was a Free-thinker, that my mind was a tabula rasa!"

— Bower, Archibald (1686-1766)

Date: 1757

"Since, therefore, the mind of man appears of so loose and unsteddy a contexture, that, even at present, when so many persons find an interest in continually employing on it the chissel and the hammer, yet are they not able to engrave theological tenets with any lasting impression; how much more ...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1760

"A man this emptied and vacuated of self-conceit, these lines of natural pride, being blotted out, the soul is as a Tabula rasa, an unwritten table, to receive any impression of the law of God, that he pleases to put on it; and then his words are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to ...

— Binning, Hugh (1627-1653)

Date: January 1, 1760 - January 1, 1762; 1762

"[M]y guardian angel forsook me when she expired! her last injunctions are deep engraven on my heart!"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)