Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"I pretend not to teach, but to enquire, and therefore cannot but confess here again, that external and internal sensation are the only passages I can find of knowledge to the understanding"

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Secondly, because sometimes I find, that I cannot avoid the having those ideas produced in my mind. For though when my eyes are shut, or windows fast, I can at pleasure recal to my mind the ideas of light, or the sun, which former sensations had lodged in my memory"

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"He that has his chains knocked off, and the prison doors set open to him, is perfectly at liberty, because he may either go or stay, as he best likes; though his preference be determined to stay, by the darkness of the night, or illness of the weather, or want of other lodging."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Earthly minds, like mud-walls, resist the strongest batteries: And though perhaps sometimes the force of a clear argument may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm, and keep out the enemy truth, that would captivate or disturb them."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"If therefore we will warily attend to the Motions of the Mind, and observe what Course it usually takes in its way to Knowledge, we shall, I think, find that the Mind having got any Idea, which it thinks it may have use of, either in Contemplation or Discourse; the first Thing it does, is to abs...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"The senses at first let in particular Ideas, and furnish the yet empty Cabinet: And the Mind by degrees growing familiar with some of them, they are lodged in the Memory, and Names got to them."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

Internal and external sensation, "These alone, as far as I can discover, are the windows by which light is let into this dark room: For methinks the understanding is not much unlike a closet wholly shut from light, with only some little openings left, to let in external visible resemblances, or i...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"And if these Organs, or the Nerves which are the Conduits, to convey them from without to their Audience in the Brain, the mind's Presence-room (as I may so call it) are any of them so disordered, as not to perform their Functions, they have no Postern to be admitted by; no other way to bring th...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Would the pictures coming into such a dark room but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them"

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1691

"First, for Use; So we see the Senses of such eminent Use for our well-being, situate in the Head, as Sentinels in a Watch-Tower, to receive and conveigh to the Soul the impressions of external Objects"

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627–1705)