Page:An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding - Locke (1690).djvu/27

RV 11 (Chap II.) and understanding their Terms; 'tis fit we first take notice, That this, instead of being a mark that they are innate, is a proof of the contrary: Since it supposes, that several, who understand and know other things, are ignorant of these Principles, till they are propos'd to them; and that one may be unacquainted with these Truths, till he hears them from others. For if they were innate, What need they be propos'd, in order to gaining assent; when, by being in the Understanding, by a natural and original Impression (if there were any such) they could not but be known before? Or, doth the proposing them, print them clearer in the Mind than Nature did? If so, then the Consequence will be, That a Man knows them better, after he has been thus taught them, than he did before. Whence it will follow, That these Principles may be made more evident to us by other's teaching, than Nature has made them by Impression: which will ill agree with the Opinion of innate Principles, and give but little Authority to them; but on the contrary, makes them unfit to be the foundations of all our other Knowledge, as they are pretended to be. This cannot be deny'd, that Men grow first acquainted with many of these self-evident Truths, upon their being proposed: But it is clear, that whosoever does so, finds in himself, That he then begins to know a Proposition, which he knew not before; and which from thenceforth he never questions: not because it was innate; but, because the consideration of the Nature of the things contained in those Words, would not suffer him to think otherwise, how, or whensoever he is brought to reflect on them.

§. 22. If it be said, The Understanding hath an implicit Knowledge of these Principles, but not an explicit, before this first hearing, (as they must, who will say, That they are in the Understanding before they are known) it will be hard to conceive what is meant by a Principle imprinted on the understanding Implicitly; unless it be this, That the Mind is capable of understanding and assenting firmly to such Propositions. And thus all Mathematical Demonstrations, as well as first Principles, must be received as native Impressions on the Mind: which, I fear they will scarce allow them to be, who find it harder to demonstrate a Proposition, than assent to it, when demonstrated: And few Mathematicians will be forward to believe, That all the Diagrams they have drawn, were but Copies of those innate Characters, which Nature had ingraven upon their Minds.

§. 23. There is I fear this farther weakness in the foregoing Argument, which would perswade us, That therefore those Maxims are to be thought innate, which Men admit at first hearing, because they assent to Propositions, which they are not taught, nor do receive from the force of any Argument or Demonstration, but a bare Explication or Understanding of the Terms. Under which, there seems to me to lie this fallacy; That Men and supposed not to be taught, nor to learn any thing de novo; when in truth, they are taught and do learn something they were ignorant of before. For first it is evident, they have learned the Terms and their Signification: neither of which was born with them. But this is not all the acquired Knowledge in the case: The Idea's themselves, about which the Proposition is, are not born with them, no more than their Names, but got afterwards. So, that in all Propositions that are assented to, at first hearing the Terms of the Proposition, their standing for such Idea's, and the Idea's themselves that they stand for, being neither of them innate, I would fain know what there is remaining in such Propositions that is innate. For I would gladly have any one name that Proposition, whose Terms or Idea's were either of them innate. We by degrees get Idea's and Names, and learn their appropriated connection one with another;