“Let us supppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE.”

—John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690; Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, 2002.