appertains to nobody becomes the property of the first occupant, so likewise it is everlasting truth that first impressions adhere most firmly to our minds. Whatever first attaches to the tender age of children, whether good or bad, remains most firmly fixed, so that throughout life it may not be expelled by any after impression.
19. In a court of justice, no doubt, the accused may justify his own cause; the judge having been better informed, the accused overthrows the cause of his accuser, by refuting the allegations, the coloring being dispersed; for whichever of the two parties, whether the former or the latter, pleads his cause most satisfactorily, the judge (being mature in age and understanding) pronounces sentence in favor of that one, commanding the other to depart; but the mind of this early age, just unfolding itself, represents wax, upon which any impression may be made when it is soft,[1] so that when it hardens it retains that impression, and will receive no other save with difficulty and violence. These, however, differ still wider, since the wax may be softened by fire so as to lose the former impression; whereas the brain can by no means be forced to lose what it has once received. I maintain that no art or method can be devised by which a man can efface an impression which he has once received, even if he himself desire it, and much less at the command of anybody else. It was therefore wisely observed by Themistocles that he would rather desire the faculty of forgetfulness than of remembering; because, whatever the force of our natural memory has apprehended, it easily retains and rarely permits it to be removed.
20. Nothing, therefore, more requires the care of parents who really desire their children’s safety, than that, while instructing them as to all good things, they should likewise secure them against the access of all evil things by conduct-
- ↑ Comenius here gives expression to Locke’s tabula rasa theory.
