Date: 1710, 1734

"They indeed, who hold the soul of man to be only a thin vital flame, or system of animal spirits, make it perishing and corruptible as the body, since there is nothing more easily dissipated than such a being, which it is naturally impossible should survive the ruin of the tabernacle, wherein it...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1710, 1734

Bodies are "barely passive ideas in the mind", and the mind is "more distant and heterogenous from them, than light is from darkness"

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1710, 1734

"For example, the will is termed the motion of the soul: this infuses a belief, that the mind of man is as a ball in motion, impelled and determined by the objects of sense, as necessarily as that is by the stroke of a racket."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1710, 1734

"Is it therefore to be wondered at, if the generality of men, who are ever intent on business or pleasure, and little used to fix or open the eye of their mind, should not have all that conviction and evidence of the being of God, which might be expected in reasonable creatures?"

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1710, 1734

"[I]deas are not any how and at random produced, there being a certain order and connexion between them, like to that of cause and effect: there are also several combinations of them, made in a very regular and artificial manner, which seem like so many instruments in the hand of nature, that bei...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1711

"The Mind of Man is allowed to be a Rasa Tabula, which in the Old Account of things, alludes to those Tablets of Wax, on which the Ancients wrote and engross'd all their Business; But in a Modern Translation, this can signify nothing else, but a fair Sheet of Paper: over which we must suppose the...

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1711

"From this Account it is plain, that the Desire of Being in Print, is an Idea, if not Unnate, yet one of the first that gets into our Minds: whence all Men express a Natural Propensity and Inclination, to be Authors"

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1711

"In the First place, he undertakes to say, That the Doctor went a Rasa Tabula to the University; And then adds, he believed that all Human and Divine Knowledge as to be had there."

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1711

"Now Human Knowledge and Divine Knowledge, are very General and Comprehensive Ideas: and where these are lodged in the Mind of a Child, it is impossible that Child should be a Rasa Tabula; Indeed a Rasa Tabula of about Fourteen or Fifteen Years old, ought by all...

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1711

"[T]ill I am satisfied that he never pulled Geese, Thumb'd a Primmer, Tore a Bible, disputed with his Dad about the Rights of Nature, or Tipp'd all Nine out of a Republican Principle, without any regard to the Middle Pinn, I must believe in Charity...

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)