de novo, whereas it is evident that they must have learned the terms and their signification, neither of which were born with them; and they must also have acquired a knowlege of the ideas which are the subject of the proposition. So that, in all such propositions, the terms, their meaning, and the ideas they stand for are not innate, and what then remains of them that is innate? By degrees we get ideas of names, and learn their connexion; and to propositions, made in terms that we understand, we at first hearing assent; but to other propositions equally evident, of which we have not acquired the ideas, we are incapable of assenting. A child assents to the proposition that an apple is not fire,' having in his mind the ideas, and having learnt that the names apple' and fire' stand for them; but it will be some years later before he assents to the proposition, that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be ;' for though the words are as easily learnt, yet their signification being more comprehensive than the names of sensible things, it is longer before he learns their meaning, and acquires the general ideas they stand for, But when he has acquired the ideas and learnt the names, he assents to the one as well as to the other proposition, and for the same reason; viz. because he finds the ideas in his mind agree or disagree, according as the words standing for them are affirmed or denied one of another. To propositions made in words, for which he has no ideas, he gives neither assent nor dissent, but is ignorant.

6

To conclude the argument of universal consent, I agree with the defenders of innate principles, that if they are innate, they must have universal assent; but then, by these men's confession, they cannot be innate, for they are not assented to by those who understand not the terms, nor by those who have never thought of the propositions.

But that I may not be accused of arguing from the

thoughts of infants, which must be unknown, I say next, that these two general propositions are not antecedent to all acquired notions, which, if innate, they needs must be. There is certainly a time when children begin to think; and can it be supposed that they. are then ignorant of the notions which nature has imprinted, if there be any such? Can it be imagined that they perceive impressions from things without, and are ignorant of the characters stamped within ? Can they receive adventitious notions, and be ignorant of those which are woven into the very principles of their being, as the foundation and guide of all their conduct and reasoning? If so, those are improperly supposed the foundations of all our knowlege, which are not first known, and without the knowlege of which many other things may be known. The child knows that the nurse, who feeds it, is not the cat it plays with, or the black man it is afraid of; but is it by virtue of the principle, that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be?' Has a child any notion of that proposition, at an age wherein it is yet plain, it knows a great many other truths?

Though, therefore, there be several propositions that are readily assented to by men who have acquired abstract ideas, and learnt the names standing for them; yet as they are not found in children who yet know other things, they are not universally assented to by intelligent persons, and so not innate : for an innate truth, if there be such, must be known to any one who knows any thing else. An innate truth must be an innate thought, there being nothing a truth in the mind that it has never thought on.

That the above general maxims are not universally known, is sufficiently proved; but there is a further argument against their being innate; for if they be so, they should appear strongest in children, idiots, savages, and illiterate persons, whose native thoughts have not been cast into new moulds by education, and who

have not by foreign doctrines and studies confounded the characters which nature has written on their minds. But amongst this description of persons what general maxims are to be found? A child knows his nurse and his cradle, and by degrees the playthings of a little more advanced age; a young savage has his bead filled with love and hunting; but he that from a child or wild inhabitant of the woods will expect abstract maxims, will find himself disappointed. Such propositions are seldom mentioned in the huts of Indians, much less are they to be found in the thoughts of children, or in the minds of naturals.

On the whole, I cannot see any ground to think these two famed speculative maxims innate, since they are not universally assented to; and the assent which they find is no other than what several propositions, confessedly not innate, partake with them; and since the assent they receive comes not from natural inscription, but from some other way. And if these first principles of knowlege are not innate, no other speculative maxims can pretend to be so.

CHAPTER III.

No innate practical Principles.

If the speculative maxims above mentioned have not a universal assent, it is much more clear that no practical principles have a universal reception. There is no moral rule which can pretend to so ready an assent as what is, is,' and 'that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be.' Not that moral principles are not equally true, but they are not equally evident. They require some exercise of the mind to discover the certainty of their truth. But this is no derogation to their truth, any more than it is to the truth of the three angles of a triangle being equal to two right ones, because it is not so evident as

'the whole is bigger than a part.' Moral rules are capable of demonstration, and it is our fault if we know them not; but the ignorance in which some men are of them, and the slowness with which others receive them, prove them not innate.

Where is the practical truth that is universally received, as it must be if innate? Justice, and keeping of contracts, is that which most men seem to agree in ; it is a principle extending to thieves; and they who have gone farthest in putting off humanity itself, keep faith, and the rules of justice, one with another. they receive these not as laws of nature, but as rules of conscience: for he who acts fairly with his fellowrobber, but plunders honest men, does not embrace justice as a practical principle.

But

It may be said, that the tacit assent of their minds agrees to what their practice contradicts. I answer, 1. actions are the best interpreters of thought. But since the practice of many, and the professions of some, have denied these principles, they are not of universal consent, and, therefore, not innate; 2. practical principles must produce conformity of action, otherwise they cannot be distinguished from speculative maxims. Nature, I confess, has put into man a desire of happiness and an aversion to misery; these, indeed, are innate practical principles, which, as practical principles ought, do continue constantly to operate and influence all our actions without ceasing: these may be observed in all persons and in all ages, steady and universal; but these are inclinations of the appetite to good, not impressions of truth on the understanding. I deny not that there are natural tendencies imprinted on the minds of men, and that from the very first instances of sense and perception, there are some things that are grateful and others unwelcome to them; but this makes nothing for innate characters on the mind, which are to be the principles of knowlege regulating our practice. Such natural impressions on

the understanding are so far from being confirmed hereby, that this is an argument against them, since if there were certain characters imprinted by nature on the understanding, as principles of knowlege, we could not but perceive them constantly operate in us, and influence our knowlege, as we do those others on the will and appetite, which never cease to be the constant springs and motives of all our actions, to which we perpetually feel them strongly impelling us.

Another argument against innate practical principles is, that there cannot be any moral rule proposed, for which a man may not justly demand a reason, which would be absurd if they were innate, or so much as self-evident, which every innate principle must needs be. It would be ridiculous to ask or to attempt to give a reason why it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be. But if that most unshaken rule of morality, and foundation of all social virtue, that one should do as he would be done unto,' should be proposed to any one who could understand the terms, he might ask a reason why; and he that proposed it might prove its truth and reasonableness. So that the truth of these rules depends on some other antecedent to them, and from which they must be deduced, so that they are neither innate nor self-evident.

That men should keep their compacts is an undeniable rule in morality; but if a Christian be asked why, he will answer, because God, who has the power of eternal life and death, requires it of us: an Hobbist will say that the public requires it, and the Leviathan will punish you if you do not; and the old heathen philosophers would have answered, because it was below the dignity of a man to do otherwise.

Hence flows that variety of opinions concerning moral rules, according to the different sorts of happiness that men propose to themselves, which would not be if practical principles were innate. I grant the existence of God is so manifest, and the obedience we

Locke.

B