Page:An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding - Locke (1690).djvu/43

RV 27 (Chap IV.)

AD those, who would perswade us, that there are innate Principles, not taken them together in gross; but considered, separately, the parts out of which those Propositions are made, they would not, perhaps, have been so forward to believe they were innate. Since, if the Idea's, which made up those Truths, were not, it was impossible, that the Propositions, made up of them, should be innate, or our Knowledge of them be born with us. For if the Idea's be not innate, there was a time, when the Mind was without those Principles; and then, they will not be innate, but be derived from some other Original. For, where the Idea's themselves are not, there can be no Knowledge, no Assent, no Mental, or Verbal Propositions about them.

§. 2. If we will attently consider new born Children, we shall have little Reason, to think, that they bring many Idea's into the World with them. For, bating, perhaps, some faint Idea's, of Hunger, and Thirst, and Warmth, and some Pains, which they may have felt in the Womb, there is not the least appearance of any setled Idea's at all in them; especially of Idea's, answering the Terms, which make up those universal Propositions, that are esteemed innate Principles. One may perceive how, by degrees, afterwards Idea's come into their Minds; and that they get no more, nor no other, than what Experience, and the Observation of things, that come in their way, furnish them with; which might be enough to satisfie us, that they are not Original Characters, stamped on the Mind.

§. 3. It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be, is certainly (if there be any such) an innate Principle. But can any one think, or will any one say, that Impossibility and Identity, are two innate Idea's? Are they such as all Mankind have, and bring into the World with them? And are they those, that are the first in Children, and antecedent to all acquired ones? If they are innate, they must needs be so. Hath a Child an Idea of Impossibility and Identity, before it has of White or Black; Sweet or Bitter? And is it from the Knowledge of this Principle, that it concludes, that Wormwood rubb'd on the Nipple, is not the same Taste, that it used to receive from thence? Is it the actual Knowledge of impossibile est idem esse, & non esse, that makes a Child distinguish between its Mother and a Stranger; or, that makes it fond of the one, and fly the other? Or does the Mind regulate it self, and its assent by Idea's, that it never yet had? Or the Understanding draw Conclusions from Principles, which it never yet knew or understood? The Names impossibility and Identity, stand for two Idea's, so far from being innate, or born with us, that I think it requires great Care and Attention, to form them right in our Understandings. They are so far from being brought into the World with us; so remote from the thoughts of Infancy and Childhood, that, I believe, upon Examination, it will be found, that many grown Men want them.

§. 4. If Identity (to instance in that alone) be a native Impression; and consequently so clear and obvious to us, that we must needs know it even from our Cradles; I would gladly be resolved, by one of Seven, or Seven-