Page:An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding - Locke (1690).djvu/29

RV 13 (Chap II.) sent, can it rationally be supposed, they can be ignorant of those Notions that Nature has imprinted, were there any such? Can it be imagin'd, with any appearance of Reason, That they perceive the Impressions from things without; and be at the same time ignorant of those Characters, which Nature it self has taken care to stamp within? Can they receive and assent to adventitious Notions, and be ignorant of those, which are supposed woven into the very Principles of their Being, and imprinted there in indelible Characters, to be the Foundation, and Guide of all their acquired Knowledge, and future Reasonings? This would be, to make Nature take Pains to no Purpose; Or, at least, to write very ill; since its Characters could not be read by those Eyes, which saw other things very well; and those are very ill supposed the clearest parts of Truth, and the Foundations of all our Knowledge, which are not first known, and without which, the undoubted Knowledge of several other things may be had. The Child certainly knows, that the Nurse that feeds it, is neither the Cat it plays with, nor the Blackmoor it is afraid of; That the Wormseed or Mustard it refuses, is not the Apple or Sugar it cries for: this it is certainly and undoubtedly assured of: But will any one say, it is by Virtue of this Principle, That it is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be, that it so firmly assents to these, and other parts of its Knowledge? Or that the Child has any Notion or Apprehension of that Proposition at an Age, wherein yet 'tis plain, it knows a great many other Truths? He that will say, Children join these general abstract Speculations with their sucking Bottles, and their Rattles, may, perhaps, with Justice be thought to have more Passion and Zeal for his Opinion; but less Sincerity and Truth, than one of that Age.

§. 26. Though therefore there be several general Propositions, that meet with constant and ready assent, as soon as proposed to Men grown up, who have attained the use of more general and abstract Idea's, and Names standing for them: yet they not being to be found in those of tender Years, who nevertheless know other things, they cannot pretend to universal assent of intelligent Persons, and so by no means can be supposed innate: It being impossible, that any Truth which is innate (if there were any such) should be unknown, at least to any one, who knows any thing else. Since, if they are innate Truths, they must be innate thoughts: there being nothing a Truth in the Mind, that it has never thought on. Whereby it is evident, if there be any innate Truths, they must necessarily be the first of any thought on; the first that appear there.

§. 27. That the general Maxims, we are discoursing of, are not known to Children, Ideots, and a great part of Mankind, we have already sufficiently proved: whereby it is evident, they have not an universal assent, nor are general Impressions. But there is this farther Argument in it against their being innate: That these Characters, if they were native and original Impressions, should appear fairest and clearest in those Persons, in whom yet we find no Foot-steps of them: And 'tis, in my Opinion, a strong Presumption, that they are not innate; since they are least known to those, in whom, if they were innate, they must needs exert themselves with most Force and Vigour. For Children, Ideots, Savages, and illiterate People, being of all others the least corrupted by Custom, or borrowed Opinions; Learning, and Education, having not cast their native thoughts into new Moulds; nor by super-inducing foreign and studied Doctrines, confounded those fair Characters Nature had written there; one might reasonably imagine, That in their Minds these innate Notions should lie open fairly to every ones view, as 'tis certain the thoughts of