Date: 1676

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

— Keach, Benjamin (1640-1704)

Date: 1677

There are "connate Principles engraven in the humane Soul"

— Hale, Sir Matthew (1609-1676)

Date: 1681

The Law of Nature has often been "described and discoursed in metaphorical and allusive Expressions, such as Engravings, and Inscriptions, and the Tables of the Heart."

— Parker, Samuel (1640-1688)

Date: 1701

"For I will here suppose the Soul, or Mind of Man, to be at first, rasa Tabula, like fair paper, that hath no connate Character or Idea's imprinted upon it (as that Learned Theorist Mr. Lock hath, I suppose, fully proved) and that it is not sensible of any thing at its coming...

— Cumberland, Richard (1632-1718)

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: 1720

"For as in the Body Politick, the Prince, (whom Seneca calls the Soul of the Commonwealth.) receiveth no Passages of State, or false Ones, where there is Negligence, or Disability in those subjectate Inquirers, (whom Xenophon terms the Eyes and Ears of Kings.) In like Manner the Soul of Man being...

— Hales, John (1584-1656)

Date: 1730

"Now, if such a complex being were in nature, how would that spiritual Soul act in that Body, that in its first Union with it (excepting some universal Principles) is a rasa Tabula, as a white Paper, without the Notices of Things written in it?"

— Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe (1651-1715); Anonymous

Date: 1731

"The Mind is a meer tabula rasa, originally without any Impression, Stamp or Character whatsoever, (unless we'll suppose it the same with Brutes) but capable of any, and most apt to receive the first that offers, till external Objects furnish it with distinct Ideas, and from thence ...

— Anonymous

Date: 1742 [see first edition, 1733]

"The Mind, like a Tabula rasa, easyly receives the first Impression; and, like that, when the first Impression is deeply made, it with Difficulty admits of an Erasement of the first Characters, which in some Minds are indelible"

— Cooke, Thomas (1703-1756)