"There is the question whether the soul in itself is completely blank like a writing tablet on which nothing has as yet been written--a <i>tabula rasa</i>--as Aristotle and the author of the <i>Essay</i> maintain, and whether everything which is inscribed there comes solely from the senses and experience; or whether the soul inherently contains the sources of various notions and doctrines which external objects merely rouse up on suitable occasions, as I believe and as Plato and even the Schoolmen and all those who understand the sense of the passage in St. Paul where he says that God's law is written in our hearts (<i>Romans</i> 2:15)"
Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain [New Essays on Human Understanding]
Written 1703-1705. Published by R. E. Raspe in 1765. <br>
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See <u>Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain</u> in <u>Oeuvres Philosophiques</u> (Amsterdam and Leipzig: Jean Schreuder, 1765). &lt;<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=zvZaAAAAQAAJ">Link to Google Books</a>&gt;<br>
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Reading a modern translation: <u>New Essays on Human Understanding.</u> trans. and ed. by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996).