e. before they are
known;- whereas truly before they are known, there is nothing of
them in the mind but a capacity to know them, when the "concurrence of
those circumstances," which this ingenious author thinks necessary "in
order to the soul's exerting them," brings them into our knowledge.
P. 52 I find him express it thus: "These natural notions are not
so imprinted upon the soul as that they naturally and necessarily
exert themselves (even in children and idiots) without any
assistance from the outward senses, or without the help of some
previous cultivation." Here, he says, they exert themselves, as p. 78,
that the "soul exerts them." When he has explained to himself or
others what he means by "the soul's exerting innate notions," or their
"exerting themselves"; and what that "previous cultivation and
circumstances" in order to their being exerted are- he will I
suppose find there is so little of controversy between him and me on
the point, bating that he calls that "exerting of notions" which I
in a more vulgar style call "knowing," that I have reason to think
he brought in my name on this occasion only out of the pleasure he has
to speak civilly of me; which I must gratefully acknowledge he has
done everywhere he mentions me, not without conferring on me, as
some others have done, a title I have no right to.
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