their natural faculties, may attain to all the knowledge they have without the help of any innate impreffions, and may arrive at certainty without any fuch original notions or principles: For I imagine any one will eafily grant, that it would be impertinent to fuppofe the ideas of colours innate in a creature to whom God hath given fight, and a power to receive them by the eyes from external objects: And no lefs unreasonable would it be to attribute several truths to the impreffions of nature and innate characters, when we may obferve in ourfelves faculties fit to attain as eafy and certain knowledge of them, as if they were originally imprinted on the mind.

But because a man is not permitted without cenfure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever fo little out of the common road, I fhall fet down the reasons that made me doubt of the truth of that opinion, as an excufe for my mistake, if I be in one, which I leave to be confidered by those who with me dispose themselves to embrace truth wherever they find it.

§ 2. General Affent the great Argument.

THERE is nothing more commonly taken for granted, than that there are certain principles, both fpeculative and practical (for they fpeak of both), univerfally agreed upon by all mankind, which therefore, they argue, muft needs be conftant impreffions, which the fouls of men receive in their firft beings, and which they bring into the world with them, as neceffarily and really as they do any of their inherent faculties.

3. Univerfal Confent proves nothing Innate.

THIS argument, drawn from univerfal confent, has this misfortune in it, that if it were true, in matter of fact, that there were certain truths wherein all mankind agreed, it would not prove them innate, if there can be any other way fhown how men may come to that univerfal agreement in the things they do confent in, which I prefume may be done.

§ 4. What is, is, and, It is impoffible for the fame thing to be, and not to be, not univerfally affented

to.

BUT, which is worfe, this argument of univerfal confent, which is made ufe of to prove innate principles, feems to me a demonstration that there are none such, because there are none to which all mankind give an univerfal affent. I fhall begin with the Speculative, and instance in those magnified principles of demonftration, Whatfoever is, is, and, It is impoffible for the fame thing to be, and not to be; which of all others I think have the most allowed title to innate. These have fo fettled a reputation of maxims univerfally received, that it will no doubt be thought ftrange if any one fhould feem to queftion it; but yet I take liberty to fay, that these propofitions are fo far from having an universal affent, that there are a great part of mankind to whom they are not

fo much as known.

§ 5. Not on the mind naturally imprinted, because not known to Children, Idiots, &c.

FOR, firft, it is evident that all children and idiots have not the leaft apprehenfion or thought of them; and the want of that is enough to destroy that univerfal affent which must needs be the neceffary conco mitant of all innate truths; it feeming to me near a contradiction to say, that there are truths imprinted on the foul, which it perceives or understands not; imprinting, if it fignify any thing, being nothing else but the making certain truths to be perceived; for to imprint any thing on the mind, without the mind's perceiving it, feems to me hardly intelligible. If, therefore, children and idiots have fouls, have minds, with thofe impreffions upon them, they muft unavoidably perceive them, and neceffarily know and affent to thefe truths, which fince they do not, it is evident that there are no fuch impreffions; for if they are not notions naturally imprinted, how can they be innate? and if they are notions imprinted, how can they be unknown? To fay a notion is imprinted on the mind, and yet at the fame time to fay that the mind is ig

nt of it, and never yet took notice of it, is to make

this impreflion nothing. No propofition can be faid to be in the mind, which it never yet knew, which it was never yet confcious of; for if any one may, then, by the fame reason, all propofitions that are true, and the mind is capable of ever affenting to, may be faid to be in the mind, and to be imprinted, fince, if any one can be faid to be in the mind, which it never yet knew, it must be only becaufe it is capable of knowing it; and fo the mind is of all truths it ever fhall know: Nay, thus truths may be imprinted on the mind, which it never did, nor ever thall know; for a man may live long, and die at last in ignorance of many truths which his nrind was capable of knowing, and that with certainty: So that, if the capacity of knowing be the natural impreffion contended for, all the truths a man ever comes to know will, by this account, be every one of them innate; and this great point will amount to no more but only to a very improper way of speaking, which, whilft it pretends to affert the contrary, fays nothing different from thofe who deny innate principles; for nobody, I think, ever denied that the mind was capable of knowing feveral truths. The capacity, they fay, is innate, the knowledge acquired: But then to what end fuch conteft for certain innate maxims? If truths can be imprinted on the understanding without being perceived, I can fee no difference there can be between any truths the mind is capable of knowing, inrefpect of their original; they must all be innate, or all adventitious; in vain thall a man go about to diAtinguish them. He therefore that talks of innate notions in the understanding, cannot (if he intend thereby any diftinct fort of truths) mean fuch truths to be in the understanding as it never perceived, and is yet. wholly ignorant of; for if thefe words (to be in the underftanding) have any propriety, they fignify to be underftood; fo that, to be in the understanding, and not to be understood; to be in the mind, and never to be: perceived, is all one as to fay, any thing is, and is not, in the mind or understanding. If, therefore, these two propofitions, Whatfoever is, is, and, It is impoffible for

the fame thing to be, and not to be, are by nature imprinted, children cannot be ignorant of them; infants, and all that have fouls, muft neceffarily have them in their understandings, know the truth of them, and affent to

it.

§ 6.

To avoid this, it is ufually anfwered, that all men know and affent to them when they come to the use of reafon, and this is enough to prove them innate. I answer,

of

§ 7. That Men know them when they come to the use of Reafon, anfwered.

DOUBTFUL expreffions, that have fcarce any fignification, go for clear reafons to thofe who, being prepoffeffed, take not the pains to examine even what they themselves fay. For to apply this anfwer with any tolerable fenfe to our prefent purpose, it must fignify one of these two things, either that as foon as men come to the use of reafon, these fuppofed native infcriptions come to be known and obferved by them, or else that the use and exercife of mens reafons affifts them in the difcovery of thefe principles, and certainly makes them known to them.

§ 8. If Reafon difcovered them, that would not prove

them Innate.

If they mean, that by the ufe of reafon men may difcover these principles, and that this is fufficient to prove them innate, their way of arguing will ftand thus, viz. that whatever truths reafon can certainly discover to us, and make us firmly affent to, thofe are all naturally imprinted on the mind, fince that univerfal affent, which is made the mark of them, amounts to no more but this, that by the ufe of reafon we are capable to come to a certain knowledge of, and affent to them; and by this means there will be no difference between the maxims of the mathematicians and theorems they deduce from them; all must be equally allowed innate, they being all difcoveries made by the ufe of reafon, and truths that a rational creature may certainly come to know, if he apply his thoughts rightly that way.

$9. It is falfe that Reafon difcovers them. BUT how can thefe men think the use of reafon neceffary to discover principles that are fuppofed innate, when reafon (if we may believe them) is nothing else but the faculty of deducing unknown truths from principles or propofitions that are already known? That certainly can never be thought innate which we have need of reason to discover, unless, as I have faid, we will have all the certain truths that reason ever teaches us to be innate. We may as well think the use of reafon neceffary to make our eyes difcover vifible objects, as that there fhould be need of reason, or the exercife thereof, to make the understanding fee what is originally engraven in it, and cannot be in the underftanding before it be perceived by it: So that to make. reafon difcover thofe truths thus imprinted, is to fay, that the ufe of reafon difcovers to a man what he knew before; and if men have thofe innate impreffed truths originally, and before the ufe of reafon, and yet are always ignorant of them till they come to the ufe of reafon, it is in effect to fay, that men know and know them not at the fame time.

$10.

Ir will here perhaps be faid, that mathematical demonftrations, and other truths that are not innate, are not affented to as foon as propofed, wherein they are diftinguished from thefe maxims and other innate truths. I fhall have occafion to speak of affent upon the first propofing more particularly by and by. I fhall here only, and that very readily, allow that these maxims and mathematical demonftrations are in this different, that the one has need of reafon, ufing of proofs, to make them out, and to gain our affent; but the other, as soon as understood, are, without any the leaft reafoning, embraced and affented to. But I withal beg leave to obferve, that it lays open the weakness of this fubterfuge, which requires the ufe of reafon for the discovery of thefe general truths, fince it must be confeffed, that in their difcovery there is no ufe made of reafoning at all: And I think thofe who give this answer will