Date: 1742

"But if the Soul was like a Tabula Rasa, or a fair Sheet of Paper, (as Mr L -- says) it would be no more capable of having Knowledge of any kind excited in it, than a Sheet of Paper can have Knowledge excited in it."

— Anonymous

Date: 1742

"The human mind cannot continue long quite a tabula rasa; some images must of course be gaining upon its affections, and consequently, forming some propensities or habits."

— Turnbull, George (1698-1748)

Date: 1742

"These judgments we form ourselves, and as it were inscribe them in ourselves. We may prevent this inscription; or, if it lurks within, unawares, immediately blot it out."

— Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180), Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), and James Moor (bap. 1712, d. 1779)

Date: 1742, 1777

"Let me consult my own passions and inclinations. In them must I read the dictates of nature; not in your frivolous discourses."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1744

"And, as the Mind cannot long continue a Tabula rasa, a meer Blank, but some Images will be impress'd upon it, we ought therefore to form good Habits and Propensities to Virtue."

— Anonymous

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)