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Date: 1744

"A mere existence or being is an indifferent thing, ('tis a Rasa Tabula) that may be coloured over with sin or holiness: and accordingly it receives its value from these; as a picture is esteemed not from the materials upon which it is drawn, but from the draught itself."

— South, Robert (1634-1716)

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Date: 1744

"The first Man knew them by his Reason; but it was this same Reason that blotted them again from his Mind; for having attained to this Kind of natural Knowledge, he began to mingle therewith his own Notions and Ideas."

— Campbell, John (1708-75)

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Date: 1744

"That philosopher [Aristotle] held that the mind of man was a tabula rasa, and that there were no innate ideas."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

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Date: 1744

"And notwithstanding the tabula rasa of Aristotle, yet some of his followers have undertaken to make him speak Plato's sense."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

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Date: 1745

"We are told by Philosophers, of no small Note, that the Mind is, at first, a kind of Tabula rasa, or like a Piece of blank Paper, that it bears no original Inscriptions, when we come into the World,--that we owe all the Characters afterwards drawn upon it, to the Impressions made upon our Senses...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

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Date: 1745

"As little would I agree with those Philosophers Constant mentioned, that the Mind resembles a Leaf of white Paper."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

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Date: 1745

"They are plainly and explicitly published; easily understood; and in fair and legible characters writ in every man's heart; and the wisdom, reason, and necessity of them are readily discerned."

— Mason, John (1706-1763)

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Date: 1748

"Our LORD uses both Methods at once, in order to fit his Disciples for their Duty, to open their Eyes, to extend their Views, to extirpate Prejudices, to make every Man's Mind a rasa Tabula, or as his own Phrase is, to make plain the Ways of the LORD."

— Anonymous; [Lyttleton]

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Date: 1748

The "Author of our Being, when he breathers into us the Breath of Life, and speaks us into Existence, leaves our Minds a pure Tabula rasa capable of any Impression, and free from all innate Prepossessions in favour of Vice or vicious Habits, but more susceptible from its own nature of virt...

— Anonymous

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Date: 1748

"And how much more consistent is it with our Notions of a just God, and our boasted Freedom of Will, to supposed the Soul, when finished by its Creator, to be a pure tabula rasa, endued with only one extensive Faculty capable of guiding it through the dark Labyrinth of Life, then co...

— Loredano, Giovanni Francesco (1607-1661)

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