Date: 1639

"[T]he Law of Nature" of "the Law of God ... is naturally written in the hearts of all men."

— Ames, William (1576-1633)

Date: MS. 1640, 1650

"[T]here is no doubt, if the true doctrine concerning the law of nature, and the properties of a body politic, and the nature of law in general, were perspicuously set down, and taught in the Universities, but that young men, who come thither void of prejudice, and whose minds are yet as white pa...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: MS. 1640, 1650

"For certainly men are not otherwise so unequal in capacity as the evidence is unequal of what is taught by the mathematicians, and what is commonly discoursed of in other books: and therefore if the minds of men were all of white paper, they would almost equally be disposed to acknowledge whatso...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1644, 1647

False judgments stick in the memory and are difficult to erase

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1646

"For by naturall birth, all men are equally and alike borne to like propriety, liberty, and freedome, and as we are delivered of God by the hand of nature into this world, every one with a naturall, innate freedome and propriety (as it were writ in the table of every mans heart, never to be oblit...

— Overton, Richard (fl. 1640-1663)

Date: 1647

"it is a firme Law and radicall principle in Nature engraven in the tables of the heart by the finger of God in creation for every living moving thing, wherein there is a breadth of life to defend, preserve, award, and deliver it selfe from all things hurtfull, destructive and obnoctious thereto ...

— Overton, Richard (fl. 1640-1663)

Date: 1649

"But when once the Earth becomes a Common Treasury again, as it must, for all the Prophesies of Scriptures and Reason are Circled here in this Community, and mankind must have the Law of Righteousnesse once more writ in his heart, and all must be made of one heart, and one mind."

— William Everard, John Palmer, John South, John Courton. William Taylor, Christopher Clifford, John Barker, Ferrard Winstanley, Richard Goodgroome, Thomas Starre, William Hoggrill, Robert Sawyer, Thomas Eder, Henry Bickerstaffe, John Taylor, &c,

Date: 1651, 1668

"Potent men, digest hardly any thing that setteth up a power to bridle their affections; and learned men, any thing that discovereth their errors, and thereby lesseneth their authority: whereas the common people's minds, unless they be tainted with dependance on the potent, or scribbled over with...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651

"The agent is a doctor or teacher, the passive a scholar; and his office is to keep and further judge of such things as are committed to his charge; as a bare and rased table at first, capable of all forms and notions."

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1651, 1668

"All fancies are motions within us, relics of those made in the sense: and those motions that immediately succeeded one another in the sense, continue also together after sense: insomuch as the former coming again to take place, and be predominant, the latter followeth, by coherence of the matter...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)