Date: 1676

"Lord shine and make my heart more soft, / And temper it, the seal to take."

— Keach, Benjamin (1640-1704)

Date: 1715

"And here we must conceive the Mind as the chief Part of Man, a judging Substance, but free from all Anticipations and Ideas; a plain Rasa Tabula, but fit for any impressions from external Objects, and capable to make Deductions from them"

— Lucretius Carus, Titus (94 B.C.- ca. 49 B.C.); Creech, Thomas (1659-1700)

Date: 1715

"But because this Notion of a Rasa Tabula will not agree with those, who are fond of some, I know not what, innate, speculative, and practical ideas; it will be necessary to consider the Instances they produce"

— Lucretius Carus, Titus (94 B.C.- ca. 49 B.C.); Creech, Thomas (1659-1700)

Date: 1744

"Read and revere the sacred page; a page / Where triumphs Immortality; a page / Which not the whole creation could produce; / Which not the conflagration shall destroy; / In Nature's ruins not one letter lost: / 'Tis printed in the minds of gods for ever."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1770?

There are "Some, whose blank minds, no spark of mercy knew."

— Downman, Hugh (1740-1809)

Date: 1773

Materialist philosophers describe "scoring Traces on the Paper Soul, / Blank, shaven white, they fill th' unfurnish'd Pate / With new Idéas, none of them innate."

— Byrom, John (1692-1763)