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Date: 1664

"Thus they also trace figures in these gaps, which correspond to those of the objects. At first they do this less easily and perfectly than they do on gland H, but gradually they do it better and better, as their action becomes stronger and lasts longer, or is repeated more often. That is why the...

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

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Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"But there is this farther Argument in it against their being innate: That these Characters, if they were native and original Impressions, should appear fairest and clearest in those Persons, in whom yet we find no Footsteps of them."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

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Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"For Children, Ideots, Savages, and illiterate People, being of all others the least corrupted by Custom, or borrowed Opinions; Learning, and Education, having not cast their Native thoughts into new Moulds; nor by super-inducing foreign and studied Doctrines, confounded those fair Characters Nat...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

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Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Characters drawn on Dust, that the first breath of wind effaces; or Impressions made on a heap of Atoms, or animal Spirits, are altogether as useful, and render the Subject as noble, as the Thoughts of a Soul that perish in thinking; that once out of sight, are gone for ever, and leave no memory...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

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Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"[W]hereas those innate principles are supposed to be quite of another nature; not coming into the mind by any accidental alterations in, or operations on the body; but, as it were, original characters impressed upon it, in the very first moment of its being and constitution."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

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Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"In all these cases, Ideas in the Mind, quickly fade, and often vanish quite out of the Understanding, leaving no more footsteps or remaining Characters of themselves, than Shadows do flying over fields of Corn; and the Mind is as void of them, as if they never had been there."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

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Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"When the Ideas that offer themselves, (for as I have observed in another place, whilst we are awake, there will always be a train of Ideas succeeding one another in our Minds,) are taken notice of, and, as it were, registred in the Memory, it is Attention."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

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Date: 1691

"So innocent is the Soul of Kainophilus, so like fair white Paper, wherein you may presently see the least blot or speck of dirt that happens to fall upon it."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

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Date: 1693

Locke's book is "designed for a Gentleman's Son, who being then very little, I considered only as white Paper, or Wax, to be moulded and fashioned as one pleases."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

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Date: 1693

"One while he fancied he saw her Dancing, another, that he saw with what a grace she spake, and every word of her discourse was as ready in his memory, as if they were the only ones engraven there; no wonder if those who will not give credit to the Stories of Apparitions, say, the Persons are del...

— Anonymous

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.