A sort of reverse tabula rasa. While this could be a sort of flourish, I don't read it as one.

If we take her at her word, Astell is suggesting that those (rational) capacities which are originally inherit to humans, can, through disuse, gradually recede into nothing.

I have lots of questions about how the hell it got there in the first place and how it goes away etc., but I suspect it has something to do with the imago Dei and the Fall.

Would the belief in innate, natural qualities be contrary to John Locke's idea of the tabula rasa? I don't know enough of Locke to know whether innate qualities would be part of what's swept off the slate.

Tabula Rasa refers to a theory that connects to purity and a blank canvas. In this sense, it became unnecessary as what was once a blank canvas due to a fire was gentrified.

But isn't this all knowledge, according to Locke's tabula rasa and Hume's empiricism?