Date: 1748

"And he labours hard to prove that these Ideas are not innate, but would have our Souls like a Blank Paper, a Rasa Tabula, ready to receive Ideas, but void of all; And affirms that these Ideas are the Foundation of all our Knowledge; and that they are conveyed to the Mind by external Objects."

— Anonymous [A Gentleman Late of the Temple, George Osborn]

Date: 1748

"But should some swain more skillful than the rest, / his name on this cold marble breast, / Not rolling ages could deface that name."

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1748, 1777

"It may, therefore, be a subject worthy of curiosity, to enquire what is the nature of that evidence, which assures us of any real existence and matter of fact, beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the records of our memory."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1754

The law "is within us, ever present with us, ever active and incumbent on the Mind, and engraven on the Heart in the fair and large Signatures of Conscience, Natural Affection, Compassion, Gratitude, and universal Benevolence."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"Nature has therefore endued us with a MIDDLE FACULTY, wonderfully adapted to our MIXED State, which holds partly of Sense and partly of Reason, being strongly allied to the former, and the common Receptacle in which all the Notices that come from that quarter are treasured up, and yet greatly su...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1733, 1748

"Still let my faithful Memory impart, / And deep engrave it on my grateful heart, / How just, and good, and excellent Thou art."

— Pilkington, Laetitia (c. 1709-1750)

Date: 1748

"But the Dean did not know what sort of a Memory I had, when he entrusted me with his Verse: I had no occasion for any other copy, than what I had registered in the Book and Volume of my Brain."

— Pilkington, Laetitia (c. 1709-1750)

Date: 1749

"The soul of man is originally a pure tabula rasa, capable of any impression either good or evil, and receives its bent from habits and education."

— Anonymous [Old Sportsman]

Date: 1749

"Chloe, in this time, by proper Reflections, and a due Sense of Caelia's great Goodness and Affection to her, had so entirely got the better of herself in this Affair, that she found she could now, without any Uneasiness see them married; and calling Caelia to her, she said with a Smile, 'I have,...

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1748, 1749

"But as the structure of this organ is such, that when once the eye formed for vision has received the pictures of objects, the brain cannot help seeing their images and differences: in the same manner when the signs of these differences are marked or ingraved in the brain, the soul must necessar...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)