Page:An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding - Locke (1690).djvu/22

RV 6 (Chap II.) If therefore these two Propositions, Whatsoever is, is, and, It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be, are by Nature imprinted, Children cannot be ignorant of them: Infants, and all that have Souls must necessarily have them in their Understandings, know the Truth of them, and assent to it.

§. 6. To avoid this, 'tis usually answer'd, that all Men know and assent to them, when they come to the use of Reason, and this is enough to prove them innate. I answer,

§. 7. Doubtful Expressions, that have scarce any signification, go for clear Reasons to those, who being prepossessed, take not the pains to examine even what they themselves say. For to apply this Answer with any tolerable Sence to our present Purpose, it must signifie one of these two things; either, That as soon as Men come to the use of Reason, these supposed native Inscriptions come to be known, and observed by them: Or else, that the Use and Exercise of Men's Reasons assist them in the Discovery of these Principles, and certainly make them known to them.

§. 8. If they mean that by the Use of Reason Men may discover these Principles, and that this is sufficient to prove them innate; their way of arguing will stand thus, (viz.) That whatever Truths Reason can certainly discover to us, and make us firmly assent to, those are all naturally imprinted on the Mind; since that universal Assent, which is made the Mark of them, amounts to no more but this; That by the use of Reason, we are capable to come to a certain Knowledge of, and assent 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 allow'd innate, they being all Discoveries made by the use of Reason, and Truths that a rational Creature may certainly come to know, if he apply his Thoughts rightly that Way.

§. 9. But how can those Men think the use of Reason necessary to discover Principles that are supposed innate, when Reason (if we may believe them) is nothing else, but the Faculty of deducing unknown Truths from Principles or Propositions, that are already known? That certainly can never be thought innate, which we have need of Reason to discover, unless as I have said, we will have all the certain Truths, that Reason ever teaches us, to be innate. We may as well think the use of Reason necessary to make our Eyes discover visible-Objects, as that there should be need of Reason, or the Exercise thereof to make the Understanding see what is Originally engraven in it, and cannot be in the Understanding before it be perceived by it. So that to make Reason discover those Truths thus imprinted, is to say, that the use of Reason discovers to a Man, what he knew before; and if Men have these innate, impressed Truths Originally, and before the use of Reason, and yet are always ignorant of them, till they come to the use of Reason, 'tis in effect to say, that Men know, and know them not at the same time.

§. 10. 'Twill here perhaps be said, that Mathematical Demonstrations, and other Truths, that are not innate, are not assented to as soon as propos'd, wherein they are distinguish'd from these Maxims, and other innate Truths. I shall have occasion to speak of Assent upon the first proposing, more particularly by and by: I shall here only, and that very readily, allow, That these Maxims, and Mathematical Demonstrations are in this different; That the one has need of Reason, using of Proofs, to make them out, and to gain our Assent: but the other, as soon as understood, are, without any the least reasoning, embraced and assented to. But I withal beg leave to observe, That it lays open the Weakness of